The Night Bird
by dust on the wind
Summary: Three times before, LeBeau was visited by the night bird. Each time someone close to him died. And now it's back... Cautionary note: supernatural themes. Things could get creepy round here.
1. Chapter 1

_I do not own any of the characters from the series Hogan's Heroes. However, I claim ownership of any original characters appearing in this story._

* * *

The emergency tunnel was meant to be for emergencies only.

That was the rule at Stalag 13. The work they did there, under the noses of their Nazi captors, was too important to the Allied war effort to be jeopardised. Only recently Colonel Hogan laid had down the law on the subject, after a few unauthorised excursions by various individuals whose names he was careful not to mention, although everyone knew who he meant.

"Someone's going to get caught, one of these days," he said, glaring at Newkirk, who looked innocent, and then at Carter, who blushed. "And that's one thing we can't afford. So no more little trips to town, unless it's on business. And no going out the emergency tunnel without a good reason. Understood?"

"Understood, Colonel," murmured Kinch, seeing nobody else was game to speak.

So the emergency tunnel was out of bounds, except for emergencies, assignments and, when necessary, for LeBeau to go out picking mushrooms.

He was doing so tonight, making the most of a temporary lull in business. An increase in activity on the part of the local Gestapo had made it advisable for them to lie low for a few days. The current sabotage assignment had been put on hold until things settled down, and word had been passed along the lines of communication that no escapees from other prison camps were to be directed to Stalag 13 until further notice.

The men were getting bored with their enforced idleness, and had started making their own entertainment. Kinch, by means that were known only to himself and an obliging RAF supply crew, had got hold of the first volume of _Á la recherche du temps perdu_, and was amusing himself by attempting to explain it in summary form to Carter. Carter wasn't getting it. "How many pages does it take for this guy to turn over in bed?" he asked. "Just skip a bit, Kinch. Get to the good part."

Kinch couldn't get it through to him that this was the good part, but he was having fun trying.

Newkirk, never one to let the grass grow under his feet, had set up a travelling blackjack school, and was even now probably fleecing the occupants of Barracks 9, along with any guards he could inveigle into the game. When he'd finished there, he would move on to Barracks 10. And LeBeau had dusted off his pastry recipes and made plans to create an extra special savoury _mille-feuille _for the next day's dinner. For that, he needed mushrooms, which meant an outing to the woods.

He took his time over the hunt, enjoying the novelty of being alone. He didn't mind being among a crowd as a rule. He liked company, but living in such close quarters got hard to take after a while. So now he had a short time to himself, he made the most of it, wandering quite far in search of the small treasures of the forest floor.

The little brown mushrooms were out. Not LeBeau's favourite, there were too many, all slightly different, all looking the same. But he knew he had to take what he could get, and they had a good, if overly robust, flavour.

A moonlight gleam attracted him to a cluster of large white _Agaricus_, their surface as smooth and perfect as the soft skin of a girl he'd known in Paris, before the war. Nina, that was her name; a sweet, intelligent brunette, who worked as an artist's model and studied philosophy, and who always wore the same faint, elusive, old-fashioned scent.

LeBeau stopped in his tracks. What had suddenly brought Nina to mind? He hadn't thought of her for years; had not wanted to think of her, because the memory made him unbearably sad. He shook his head impatiently and moved on, leaving the white mushrooms alone.

It was unusually still among the trees. The autumn rain which had set the mushrooms growing had cleared, leaving a damp softness underfoot, and a sparkle of water droplets on the leaves. In spite of himself, LeBeau had started to feel melancholy. He tried to put Nina out of his mind, but found himself mulling over another remembrance, of moonlight gleaming on the rain-soaked foliage of another forest in another country, and on the pale unmoving face of his friend Etienne, lying still where he had fallen...

Something was wrong. LeBeau came to a standstill, with a sudden chill shivering across his skin. To his left, a patch of darkness lay under the trees; a shallow pool of water, overhung by branches which blocked the light of the moon. And a third memory joined the other two; a barely remembered confusion of darkness, and cold water, and the little sister whose face he had long been unable to recall.

A sound rippled across the silence; a discordant croak, dying away into an uneven sibilance. It came from the low undergrowth on his right, opposite the pool. He'd heard the same call before, but not for many years.

He knew now what was happening, and the hair on the back of his neck rose.

_Don't turn around. Don't look._

But he had to. He had no choice.

The bird was not looking at him. It was blacker than the shadows in which it crouched, its outlines blurred by the darkness. Even so, he knew it resembled a raven, only larger than it should have been, and oddly deformed. It drew its head down towards its breast, in a way no bird should have been able to, then stretched its neck and pecked spitefully at some kind of dead animal which lay half-hidden beneath the bushes.

Just a bird, nothing more. If it didn't turn - if it didn't look at him - then all would be well. But LeBeau's heart was pounding.

The creature clacked its beak, and jabbed at the dead thing again, then hopped to one side and twisted its head around, fixing one eye on LeBeau. A white eye, veined with grey, like marble. It should have been blind, but he knew it could see him.

He stepped back, shaking his head, unable to speak, and the bird uttered its groaning call again, then turned back to - was it a rabbit? It was too dark to tell, although he thought it was something bigger. At all events, the bird made a third stab at it, tearing out a strip of flesh from the leg. LeBeau's stomach heaved. He swayed, then broke and fled.

He came to a stop some distance away, and fell to the ground, panting for breath. After a while, he sat up, wrapping his arms around his legs in an attempt to stop himself from shivering.

Three times in his life, he had seen the night bird, with its distorted form and white eyes. Twice he had been too young to understand; the third time, he had tried to rationalise it, then afterwards he had tried to forget it. But it was always there, an unacknowledged fear at the back of his consciousness. Somehow he'd always known it would come back, one day.

Someone was going to die. It always happened, when the night bird appeared. No matter what he did, he wouldn't be able to prevent it. He didn't even know who it would be. But it would happen. One of his friends would die.

* * *

Note: _Á la recherche du temps perdu (In search of lost time)_ is a novel, in seven volumes, by Marcel Proust.


	2. Chapter 2

It was well on towards dawn before LeBeau returned to camp. He thought everyone would be asleep, but Kinch was still in the radio room, immersed in Proust.

"What took you so long?" he asked, with a slightly distracted air.

"I went a bit further than I meant to," replied LeBeau, trying to be casual. Experience had taught him that it was better not to talk about the night bird; if he did, the best he could expect was to be considered borderline crazy. "Did Colonel Hogan say anything?"

"I haven't told him yet. If you're lucky, he'll never know." Kinch gave him a grin. "Did you get them?"

"What? Oh, the mushrooms." LeBeau had almost forgotten why he'd been out there. "_Oui_, I got them." He felt sick at the thought of using them; he never wanted to see a mushroom again.

"You okay, Louis?" Kinch had picked up on his lack of enthusiasm.

"Just tired. I walked a long way tonight," said LeBeau quickly.

Kinch continued to look at him for what seemed like hours. "It's pretty late," he said at last. "Maybe you should sack out down here, so you don't wake the whole barracks. Nobody needs to know what time you got back."

"_Merci_." LeBeau didn't dare say any more. He wasn't sure he could keep his voice steady.

_It could be Kinch_. The thought came unbidden, and he pushed it aside, refusing to look at it. He didn't want to know.

He slept poorly, drifting in and out of an unsettled vision of dark woods and disturbing sounds. Kinch finally woke him just before six.

"We better get up to the barracks before they call us out for roll-call," he said. "You didn't seem to be getting much good out of it, anyway. What were you dreaming about?"

"I don't remember," murmured LeBeau uncertainly, rubbing his eyes. The whole of the previous night now seemed vague and unreal. A bad dream, that was all. There was no night bird, there never had been. As a child, he'd imagined it into existence and scared himself with it, but he wasn't a child now, and he knew the difference between fantasy and reality.

But he went up to the barracks in a subdued, thoughtful mood, and he left the mushrooms in the tunnel. That _mille-feuille_ was never going to be made.

The morning passed slowly until mail call, which was always a high point. Even LeBeau brightened up as Schultz distributed the letters which were so comforting a link to the world outside the barbed wire.

"Kinchloe - LeBeau - two for you, that one is from Yvette..."

"Schultz, you've been reading my mail," protested LeBeau.

"No, I recognised the perfume. _Toujours l'Amour_. The other is from Suzanne - _Fleur de nuit_, if I am not mistaken. Newkirk - nothing for you." This was delivered with a rare gleam of malice, and Newkirk scowled. "And one for Little Deer, who goes swift and sure through forest." He held the letter out towards Carter, with a beaming smile. Even now, he still got childishly excited every so often over the fact that there was a real, live Sioux Indian residing in Barracks 2. Carter found it pretty embarrassing, but was too good-natured to discourage him.

"You sure there's nothing for me, Schultz?" Newkirk had passed from annoyance to anxiety. "I should have heard from Mavis this week."

"Week's not over yet, Newkirk," said Hogan, who had emerged from his office for the mail call. He accepted the letters Schultz handed him, glanced at the first envelope, and a smile crossed his face. "From my Uncle George." Extracting the contents, he read quickly through it. "About the birthday party he was planning for his brother, the one they had to postpone. Looks like it's going ahead."

A ripple of interest ran around the barracks. The letter was coded, of course; the "birthday party" was the mission which had been put off due to the Gestapo activity in Hammelburg. It sounded like it was back on.

Only two of the prisoners didn't share the sense of anticipation which the news had produced. Newkirk was still worrying about his sister; and LeBeau, to all appearances engrossed in Yvette's delicately perfumed missive, was lost in his own thoughts, and beset by a sense of dread. Just within the last few minutes, an aspect of the previous night's encounter which he'd overlooked had suddenly begun to make a terrifying kind of sense.

He realised with a start that Hogan was looking at him, and he hastily rejoined the conversation around the table. But the thought wouldn't go away, and he was aware of an urgent, compelling need to get back to the woods and check. If he was wrong, well and good, although it meant more uncertainty. But if he was right...no, he couldn't bear to think of it. It was a mistake. It had to be.

He had to wait some time for the chance; it was early afternoon, during the exercise period, before he was able to slip away and get to the tunnel.

His heart raced as he ascended the ladder to the tree stump exit in the woods. If the guards spotted him, not only might they shoot him, but the whole tunnel network could be exposed. And if Colonel Hogan spotted him, the consequences would be even worse. He almost gave it up, but the fear which had sprung up in his consciousness was growing every minute, and was too strong now for him to ignore. He had to know, even if it broke his heart.

Holding his breath, he pushed the hatch fractionally open, peered around, and then quickly exited and dived for cover among the bushes. He lay still for a couple of minutes, willing himself to calm down; then he got up and set off in the direction he'd gone the night before. He kept a careful watch for patrols, ready to disappear into the undergrowth at a second's notice, but he saw nobody.

The woods around him seemed unfamiliar in the afternoon light. Presently he stopped, uncertain of his way. He looked around, trying to find a landmark among the trees, and his eye fell on a small patch of dingy white; a group of pale _Agaricus_, beginning to dry and shrivel in the sunlight. He moved on slowly, and a broad shallow pool of water came into view. This was the place; this was where he'd been last night. He stopped by the pool, and looked around slowly.

Just bushes, nothing else. No sign of the dead creature which had been there the night before. Nothing to indicate it had ever been there at all. He crept forward, and knelt to inspect the ground more closely. There was nothing to be seen; the soft grass, growing long to reach the sunlight, was unmarked.

It had never been there. But LeBeau was certain. He had seen it, he had seen the night bird tearing at its lifeless flesh. And he knew now what it was. A deer. A little forest deer.

_Not Carter. Oh, please. Don't let it be Carter._


	3. Chapter 3

Newkirk was in a sombre mood, brooding over the missed letter from his sister; and because he was such a forceful personality in the barracks, when he was down, everyone was down. So LeBeau's unusual silence, as the evening went on, passed without comment.

He was still coming to grips with what he had seen, still trying to work out whether he had understood rightly. He could hardly bring himself to confront the thought. Every time he looked at Carter, a rising tide of grief almost overwhelmed him. Nor could he contemplate the possibility of having made a mistake; it led inevitably to the conclusion that it might be someone else. Colonel Hogan, or Kinch. Or Newkirk.

The last thought chilled him to the core, and he instinctively rejected it. Which brought him back to Carter, and he couldn't stand that, either.

By lights-out a stubborn, desperate determination had taken root in his mind. There had to be something he could do, some way he could prevent this from happening. The vision had been both clear and specific; why should he be given such a message, unless it was a warning, a call to take preventive action?

So when Hogan raised the prospect of a meeting with Underground contacts that night, LeBeau volunteered to go along, on the pretext that Newkirk was too preoccupied to be any use. Carter didn't get a choice.

"They've got a demolition job for us," Hogan explained, when Carter showed signs of discontent. "New radar installation, this side of Bernsdorf. It's a mission that needs your special touch, Carter. Now, you don't want to miss out on the fun part, do you?"

"I guess not," murmured Carter. "But..."

"Good. We leave in an hour."

The light of the third-quarter moon made it necessary for precautions to be taken on this outing; black clothes and blackened faces. In a corner of the radio room, LeBeau prepared in silence, his thoughts focused on the undertaking ahead of him. He knew keeping Carter safe from harm was likely to be a challenge. Even under normal circumstances, sometimes it was hard work keeping Carter out of trouble.

LeBeau was starting to think he might need help. No matter how much he dreaded the thought of how it might be received, he might have to confide in someone.

He glanced at Carter, who had just finished applying blacking to his face, and was checking the result in the small mirror which they kept down here for these occasions.

"You look lovely, Andrew," observed Newkirk, making a determined effort to put aside his anxiety about Mavis.

"Yeah, that colour really brings out your eyes," added Kinch, grinning.

"Real funny, guys," said Carter. He turned sharply, and the mirror went flying.

"Well, there's seven years' bad luck." Newkirk leaned forward, regarding the splinters of glass on the floor with resignation. "As if it makes any difference, with you."

"You don't buy into that stuff, do you?" Kinch's grin got even wider.

"You never know, Kinch," replied Newkirk. "More things in heaven and earth, as they say."

Carter gave a low chuckle, as he started to pick up the shards.

"No, don't you laugh, Carter. I had an aunt who took it very seriously, you know. Never left the house if it was Friday the thirteenth, avoided black cats, that sort of thing. Shame what happened to her, too." Newkirk shook his head, with a sorrowful air.

"Well, don't keep us in suspense," said Hogan, his face relaxing into a smile as he picked up on the gleam of mischief in Newkirk's eye. "What happened?"

"She stepped out into the road to avoid walking under a ladder," replied Newkirk, "and got hit by a bus."

LeBeau was the only one who didn't laugh. He looked around, noting the expressions of cynical amusement, and gave up any thought of trying to explain his own personal non-existent cryptozoological phenomenon. If they were so skeptical about mere superstition, the night bird didn't stand a chance. He would just have to watch out for Carter himself.

He was on edge as he climbed out of the tree stump; and the shiver which went down his back was only partly because of the cold air. He crouched in the low undergrowth near the exit, waiting for Hogan and Carter to join him. Then, as they set off towards the rendezvous point, he dropped back a little, ensuring Carter would remain in his line of sight. It was all he could do.

The meeting had been set up in a barn about three miles from Stalag 13; close enough to reach on foot, but not so close that detection by guard patrols from camp was a high risk. LeBeau remained on the alert until they were inside, and even then he only relaxed a little. The operatives they were meeting were known to them, but right now he wasn't inclined to trust anyone. The danger could come from anywhere.

The two men were regular Hammelburg contacts: Karl, a short stocky man of middle age, and Jakob, several years younger, quiet and earnest. He walked with a noticeable limp; one leg was shorter than the other, which had kept him out of military service. The girl, Magdalena, lived in Bernsdorf, and for some months had been a reliable source of information. She was older than she appeared; old enough to have married, old enough to be a widow.

As Hogan and his men entered, she looked over her shoulder, with a shy, grave smile when she saw LeBeau. He didn't return it, but his tension eased slightly.

"We will need to make this fast, Colonel Hogan." Karl spoke quickly, before Hogan could say anything. "Magdalena came along the old mill road, and she was delayed. There was an SS patrol."

"Six men," added the girl. "A captain in charge. I didn't recognise them." She knew the drill.

"More likely to be from Hammelburg than Bernsdorf," said Hogan. "LeBeau, keep watch outside. Okay, Karl..."

The rest of the conversation was lost to LeBeau, as the door closed behind him.

He paced back and forth in front of the door, his skin tingling. Clouds had covered the moon, diffusing the light into a dim radiance which smudged the outlines of the trees surrounding the barn. The shadows moved, and he jumped back, half-expecting to see a misshapen birdlike form come hopping forth. But it was just the wind.

"You're not taking him," he whispered fiercely. "I won't let you have him."

It felt as if hours passed before Hogan and Carter emerged from the barn; in fact it was less than fifteen minutes.

"I'm just saying, Colonel, it's a long way for a girl to cycle on her own at this time of night." Carter seemed a bit troubled.

"Carter, she knows what she's doing," said Hogan patiently. "What do you want to do, walk her home?"

"I bet she'd prefer it if Louis did," responded Carter, glancing at LeBeau with a boyish grin. "She really likes him."

Hogan shook his head, and pointed in the direction of home. "Nobody's walking her home. Let's get back to camp. Keep quiet, and watch out for that patrol."

LeBeau looked back briefly, as they set off. Magdalena and the two men were just leaving the barn; she sent him another quick smile, and headed towards the road, pushing her bicycle, while Jakob and Karl went in the other direction.

Carter was right about the girl; she liked LeBeau, and he liked her. But he had more pressing concerns right now.

Once again, he tried to keep Carter in sight, as they moved through the woods. So he had a perfect view when, just as they skirted a clearing, a pistol shot rang out. He jumped backwards, dropping into a crouch. Behind him, he heard Hogan do the same.

Carter was ahead of them. And he was down. LeBeau could just see him, lying huddled on the ground, just at the edge of the clearing. He couldn't tell whether Carter had been hit, or had taken a dive. But his heart stood still.

He'd failed. He had been given a warning, and he had still not been able to do anything to prevent this.

Then Carter lifted his head, peering about anxiously, before he made a rapid retreat, scrambling into the shelter of the undergrowth before scuttling back to join Hogan and LeBeau.

"Boy, that was close," he whispered.

"You okay?" murmured Hogan, still scanning the trees for any sign of movement.

"I think I got a splinter. The bullet smacked straight into a tree right next to me." Carter rubbed the edge of his hand across his cheek. "Yep, I'm bleeding a bit. It's okay."

"Good." Hogan took one more look around. There was nothing to be seen. "Right, get moving. If we get separated, we meet back at the tree stump. Go."

Silently, Carter slipped off among the trees. It took LeBeau a few seconds to control his breathing enough to follow him. Those few seconds had hit him hard, and he was still trembling, and totally confused about what had just happened.

Carter must have come within inches of being shot, but he was still alive. LeBeau expected further shooting any second, but they reached the emergency tunnel with no further incident.

Perhaps the night bird was wrong for once; perhaps the danger was over.

Or perhaps it was still to come.


	4. Chapter 4

"What happened to you, Carter?"

The question came from Schultz, as he counted his way along the double rank of prisoners at morning assembly. He barely glanced at each man, but the cuts on Carter's face, where he'd been hit by splinters of wood the night before, would have been hard to miss.

Carter was playing dumb. "How d'you mean, Schultz?" he asked, with a perfectly beautiful blank look.

"Your face." Schultz leaned forward, peering at the damage.

"That? Oh, that's nothing," replied Carter easily. "Just some sort of rash. I guess I've been scratching it too much. It itches."

Schultz backed away so fast he nearly sent three men in the front row flying. "Is it contagious?"

"Gee, Schultz, I don't know. Maybe you should ask Newkirk. He had it first."

"When did he have a rash? I never saw it," said Schultz dubiously, turning his attention to Newkirk, while still maintaining a prudent distance.

"It wasn't on his face, Schultz," observed Hogan with a smirk. Newkirk, not best pleased by the turn of the conversation, nevertheless adopted a suitably embarrassed demeanour, accompanied by the kind of fidgeting usually associated with discomfort in unspecified locations. It had the desired effect; Schultz asked no more questions, and retreated to give his report to the Kommandant. It was probably a safe bet he wouldn't be visiting the barracks any more than he had to for the next few days.

"Which is handy, for us," said Hogan, once he and his team were safely in his office. "Close the shutters, Kinch."

He spread a map on the desk. "Okay, this is the target, about ten miles south of Bernsdorf, which places it fifteen miles from here. The information the Underground got for us is that it's part of a new early warning system, with additional units at Weizenfeld and Felsbrunnen. It's in the final stages of testing, and if it goes into full operation, it's going to make a lot of trouble for our bombers heading to the industrial region east of Hammelburg."

"What's so special about it, Colonel?" asked Newkirk, scratching his neck.

Hogan allowed the map to roll up. "Couple of things. Firstly, because the system uses three-point triangulation, it's very accurate for pinpointing position, trajectory and speed of any approaching aircraft. And secondly, they're using some new fast computer to work out the figures. The computer is at the Bernsdorf facility, which is also the central point of the whole system. So if we take out Bernsdorf, that automatically makes Weizenfeld and Felsbrunnen redundant."

"How much do we know about the place?" said Kinch. "Newkirk, do you have to do that?"

"It's Carter's fault," grumbled Newkirk, who was still scratching. "He put the idea in my head. Now I'm itching all over."

"Okay, settle down. Let's have a bit of focus, guys." Hogan looked at Newkirk, who subsided. "So far, Kinch, we only know the location. But we should have more information within a few days. Magdalena's managed to get taken on as driver to General Langbein, who's in charge of the project. Langbein prefers women drivers, apparently, even if it means having a civilian in the job."

"She says he's got busy hands," added Carter in a tone of strong disapproval.

"Don't you worry about Magdalena, Andrew," said Newkirk. "That lass can take care of herself." He should know; he'd struck out with her at their first meeting, and made no headway since.

"She's used to risky situations, all right," added Hogan, with a grin. "She's trying to get some more information about the installation - in particular, details of the layout and security. Once she has it, she'll be in touch with Karl, and arrange another meeting, probably in Hammelburg. After that, we'll be able to work out the details of the job. Carter, how are we off for supplies?"

"I got plenty of dynamite, but I'm out of detonators," said Carter, after a moment's thought. "We used the last ones on that munitions train job, last week. I sort of forgot to mention it."

"Carter, that's the third time this year you've run out." Hogan folded his arms, gazing at Carter with weary exasperation.

"Sorry, Colonel," replied Carter deprecatingly. "We blew up a lot of bridges last month. I guess I just lost track. You know how it is, when you're having fun."

Hogan sighed. "Kinch, contact London, see if they can include some detonators in the next supply drop."

"Will do, Colonel. Anything else?"

"Not till we hear from Magdalena. LeBeau - " Hogan broke off, regarding LeBeau with narrowed eyes and a faint smile.

LeBeau, who had slept poorly again, had not been contributing to the discussion. He was deep in his own thoughts, but the silence which fell around him forced him to surface, as if waking from a trance. "_Pardon, Colonel_," he murmured.

"Glad you could join us," remarked Hogan, still smiling. LeBeau lowered his eyes, ashamed.

"You'll be making the next rendezvous," Hogan went on. "We'll have to work out the details after we hear from Magdalena, but at this stage I don't want anyone using the emergency tunnel more than they have to, until we find out what the SS are doing in the woods, and if it was one of them who fired at us last night."

"Well, gee, Colonel, who else would it be?" asked Carter.

Hogan rubbed the back of his neck. "Okay, I admit they're the most likely, but it doesn't quite fit. When was the last time an SS patrol took one shot at us, and didn't follow it up?" He let them think about it for a minute.

"Maybe they'd split up," suggested Kinch at last. "If one of them was on his own, he might get spooked when he realised he'd missed the shot."

"He didn't miss it by much, did he?" observed Carter casually, rubbing his fingers over his cheek. LeBeau made a restless movement, but nobody else paid much attention to it.

"What if it was one of our own guards?" put in Newkirk.

"I don't buy it," said Hogan. "We would have heard something by now. Still, can't hurt to ask around. See if Schultz knows anything, either about the shooting or about the SS."

"Kinch or LeBeau better handle Schultz, Colonel." Newkirk leaned back, with a sideways glance at Carter. "If he sees me or Carter coming, he'll run a mile, in case he catches something nasty."

"Good point." Hogan suppressed a smile . "Kinch, you tackle Schultz. The rest of you sound out the other guards. Any questions?"

He gave them a moment to reply, then nodded in dismissal. "Okay, back to work. Hold it, LeBeau."

LeBeau stopped in his tracks. He might have known.

Hogan waited till Kinch had closed the door before he spoke. "What's with you today?"

"Nothing, Colonel." LeBeau held himself upright, and looked at Hogan with wide-eyed sincerity.

"Is that right?" Hogan paused, then said abruptly. "Where are the other three radar installations?"

LeBeau swallowed, then replied nervously, "One was at Weizenfeld." That was a safe bet. But beyond that he was stumped. "I'm not sure about the other two."

"You weren't listening, were you?" Hogan regarded him sternly.

"No, _mon Colonel_," admitted LeBeau. His voice dropped almost to a whisper.

"I expect better of you, LeBeau," Hogan went on. "I know it's not always easy, but we have an important job to do here, and we can't afford to let things slip. If you've got a problem, you deal with it, or tell me about it, or let it go. But you don't let it interfere with our work. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly clear, _mon Colonel_."

"Good. Now, is there anything you want to tell me?"

"No, sir."

"Good." Hogan went back to the map. "Because this will be the last time I go over anything again for your benefit. From now on, when I'm talking, you better be listening."

Ten minutes later, LeBeau came out of the office. He went to his bunk, and stood irresolute for a moment. Kinch had already gone in search of Schultz, but Newkirk and Carter were loitering.

"You all right, LeBeau?" Newkirk was looking at him with an expression of mildly concerned curiosity. LeBeau did not reply, and after a pause Newkirk went on. "You weren't half restless last night. Kept me awake half the night. You got something on your conscience? Or just dreaming about the lovely Magdalena? You want to watch those young widows, you know."

"Oh, very funny, Newkirk," LeBeau snapped back. "She's a woman of taste and refinement. Which is why you got nowhere."

Newkirk shrugged, but that one had hit the target, and without another word he headed outside. Carter, obviously trying not to laugh, followed. For a moment, LeBeau wondered if he should go with them, but if there was any threat to Carter's safety within the barbed wire, surely Newkirk and Kinch could handle it. Instead he climbed onto his bunk, and lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, trying to make sense of what had happened the night before.

He was deeply unsettled about Carter's near miss, unable to decide if it had been the event the night bird had come to predict, or if some more certain danger was still ahead. If he was to work it out, he realised he would have to confront something he'd long refused to look at.

He was going to have to return to the memory of the worst night of his life.


	5. Chapter 5

It was almost a year since Louis had come to live in Paris, and he was more in love with the city than ever. Except when it rained. Paris, on a cold, wet November night, was about as miserable a place as could be imagined.

He had finished work, and was feeling low and exhausted as he walked through the streets towards home. He knew he had been lucky, at such a young age, to rise to the position of _sous-chef _in a hotel as prestigious as the Belvedere, but sometimes he wondered whether it was worth it. The long hours, and the frenetic pace of the hotel kitchen, took a lot out of him.

_One day, I will cook only to please myself_, he thought. _Or to please people I care about. _

As usual, he cut across the _Jardin de Saint-Paul _to save time. This small public garden, on the site of a long-demolished church, must have been pretty at one time, but was rather neglected and overgrown these days; romantic and picturesque in daylight, or under a full summer moon, but when the trees were heavy with rain, and the earth soft and sodden underfoot, it took on an atmosphere of desolation. Louis found himself walking more quickly, unnerved by the darkness and isolation. Then as he reached the centre of the park, where his path was crossed by another, he stopped.

In the middle of the crossing, dark in the darkness, was a large black bird, huddled miserably against the weather. Louis hesitated, beset by an indeterminate aversion. But he would have to get past the thing, or go back and walk round the long way; and the rain was getting heavier. The thought occurred to him that perhaps it was injured.

Then as he got closer, the bird lifted its head and glared at him. Eyes white, like marble. Louis froze, shocked. For a moment, he grappled with a memory which didn't want to surface, something from his childhood. Something which had frightened him so much that he had refused to remember it.

The bird crouched again, uttering a low discordant cry, and shook its head, sending water droplets flying. Then it shuffled sideways, towards the bushes crowding the edge of the path, and peered up at the branches, at something hidden amongst the wet leaves. Louis couldn't make out what it was, and couldn't bring himself to go any closer. There was something unnatural about the creature, some peculiarity of form or motion which wasn't right. It was familiar; he'd seen it before.

He turned abruptly, and went back the way he'd come, with rapid uneven steps. It was cowardly, he knew, but at that moment he couldn't face it. The eleven-year-old boy who, years before, had been so terrified by the night bird wouldn't allow it.

It was some time before he reached the boarding house. The encounter in the park had left him unsettled, and he had walked some distance, trying to clear his head, so it was almost four in the morning when he finally rang the bell, and was admitted by a sleepy concierge. Wearily, he climbed the stairs to his _appartement_, shed his damp clothes and crawled into bed, knowing tomorrow was his day off and he could sleep late. But he didn't get much rest, and he woke mid-morning, unrefreshed.

He met Nina on the stairs, as he headed out in search of ingredients for lunch. Nina was the tenant of the flat above his; a pretty girl, a little younger than Louis. They had never been lovers; Louis had asked, Nina had considered, then declined. "We're going to be friends," she told him. "Let's not complicate it."

And friends they had become. More than friends; both living away from their families, they had virtually adopted each other as siblings. He told her about his various girlfriends, she kept him updated about her own adventures, and when neither had any other engagements they spent long evenings together playing chess, both of them cheating, finding it hilarious when they got caught out.

Nina insisted on cooking for him on their nights in, and just laughed when he made fun of her efforts. But recently Nina had started working as an artists' model to support her studies at the university, and in consequence of the long hours the work entailed, and the extended shifts Louis was working at the hotel, lately they had hardly seen each other except in passing.

"_Bonjour, colombe._"

"_Bonjour, mon p'tit canard._" The usual pet names; dove and duck. "Are you not working today?"

"No," said Louis. "Have _déjeuner_ with me? I can make omelettes." Whether it was because of the previous night's odd experience, or for some other reason, he felt disinclined to be much alone today.

"I can't today, _frèrot_," Nina replied, with evident regret. "I have classes. And I'm meeting Jean-Paul tonight. He says he has something important to tell me."

He couldn't fail to notice how weary she seemed. "Are you not well,_ colombe_? You look tired."

"I'm fine." Nina gave him a smile. "And you ought to look in the mirror before you talk, Louis. You are working much too hard."

"No. I just had a bad night." No point in telling Nina what had given him such a bad night.

She went on up to her flat, and Louis did not see her again that day. He kept himself busy; cleaned house, wrote a long-overdue letter to his parents, then in the evening took himself off to the cinema. He wouldn't admit it to himself, but he was trying to forget about the night bird. It was just a bird, that was all. It meant nothing.

But it was there, on the doorstep, when he returned home.

He stopped dead as soon as he saw it. _It's following me_, he thought. _Now what am I going to do?_

But the bird didn't hang around. Louis heard footsteps behind him, and the voices of three or four people, passing along the street on the other side. He turned his head momentarily, and when he looked again, the creature was gone.

He passed another uneasy night, sleeping only because he was too tired to stay awake; and the following day seemed to go by like an unquiet dream. Another late shift at the hotel, another walk home through the silent streets. He avoided the park, and was relieved to see no sign of anything lurking outside the door of the boarding house. He rang the bell, gained admission and began the ascent to his flat. And at the first turn of the stairs, a low-pitched croaking call stopped him in his tracks.

The night bird was at the top of the flight, just in front of the door of Louis' flat. It seemed agitated, hopping from one foot to the other. As Louis moved hesitantly forward, it stretched its neck and snapped at his foot, and he jumped back.

"What do you want with me?" he whispered furiously. "Go away."

The bird hissed at him, and with a flapping of stunted wings scuttled towards the next flight of stairs, the flight leading to Nina's rooms. It peered upwards, with those horrible eyes, then turned back to Louis and hissed again.

Louis felt a sudden tightening in his stomach. The bird began climbing, awkwardly, its movements disturbingly unnatural in the dim light, and he followed, then suddenly began to run. He stumbled as he passed the creature, recovered, and raced to Nina's door. It was unlocked.

She was lying on the bed, curled on her side as if asleep. But her skin was cold to the touch, and the blood which had stained the bedclothes had gone dark.

Never again, as long as he lived, would Louis be able to cope with the sight of blood.

Many weeks later, he would learn why she had done it, and what had happened between her and Jean-Paul, to cast her into such despair. It didn't help. Louis knew he had failed her somehow.

Questions were asked, by the other residents, by Nina's parents, by the police. All wanted to know how it came about that Louis had gone up to her room so late in the night. But when, goaded beyond patience, he let slip what had sent him to find her, the tone of the questions changed. Either he was crazy, they thought, or he had something to hide. And eventually he decided, no more. He would never speak of the night bird again, not to anyone.

He moved away, left the hotel kitchen and the boarding house, and tried to bury the memory, because it grieved him beyond bearing to think of it. And as for the night bird, that was buried as well. Whatever had brought it into his life at that time, it didn't matter. It had foreshadowed Nina's death, but it hadn't made any difference.

* * *

LeBeau opened his eyes. He wasn't sure if he'd been asleep, but he felt as if he had gone away from Stalag 13, and returned with a new perspective. He thought he knew now what to expect.

The night bird had tried to warn him twice, before Nina died. He had not understood; he had not looked closely enough, when he first saw the creature. Perhaps there had been some further message, as clear in meaning as the little deer he had seen two nights before. He had missed it then, and could do nothing for Nina now, but he might still have a chance to save Carter.

And if the danger still existed, he realised, he could almost certainly expect another visitation.


	6. Chapter 6

"Morning, Schultz. Where are you off to, then?" Newkirk, strolling into the motor pool as if he had every right to be there, leaned on the hood of the lorry which was parked there, the motor idling while Schultz exchanged a few words with one of the other guards.

"I have to go into Hammelburg," replied Schultz. "The truck that delivers your Red Cross packages has broken down, and they called the Kommandant and told him to send someone to fetch them."

Newkirk knew that perfectly well, since he'd been the one who phoned the message through. He had also called the dispatch office to tell them Schultz was going to be in Hammelburg anyway, and would collect the Red Cross parcels to save them the journey.

"Not sure I'm happy about that," he said, fixing the sergeant with a stern eye. "The last time you had anything to do with the Red Cross parcels, we were several short."

"Newkirk, I am surprised you would say such a thing." Schultz's face took on a wounded look. "What would I want with your Red Cross parcels?"

"Takes a lot of food to maintain that kind of physique, Schultz," observed Newkirk, with a glance at Schultz's stomach. "And the way this war's going, frankly, I doubt you're getting fed that well by your own side."

"Hiya, guys." Carter had ambled into the motor pool. "What's up?"

"Schultz is going to get our Red Cross parcels from town," said Newkirk.

"Is he? Well, I better get in first this time. Last couple of times I missed out." Carter joined Newkirk beside the truck, and gazed at Schultz reproachfully.

Schultz immediately renewed his protests, so deeply offended by the imputation that he failed to notice when LeBeau went around behind him and jumped into the back of the truck, taking cover beneath a tarpaulin.

It had taken two days for word to be received from Magdalena, but the previous night had brought a message from her; she had the additional information needed for the mission to go ahead. Hogan had immediately put his mind to work on a plan to get LeBeau out of camp by some means other than the emergency tunnel. The Red Cross delivery was timed perfectly, and LeBeau could return in the evening when Oskar Schnitzer brought in the new guard dogs.

LeBeau had not yet relaxed; he remained alert where Carter was concerned, but his nervous tension had started to ease as the time passed with no further manifestations. He was beginning to hope perhaps the danger was over.

With a final grumble about "jolly jokers", Schultz dismissed his two accusers, and climbed laboriously into the driver's seat. LeBeau, lying flat under the tarpaulin, prepared for an uncomfortable ride.

It started to rain as they cleared the gate, and shortly a trickle of water found its way into LeBeau's refuge. He shifted a little, muttering under his breath. Soon the sound of wind-driven raindrops against the canvas drowned out the motor. LeBeau's mood darkened, but it was only a shower.

Just outside Hammelburg, the truck came to a stop, and LeBeau heard Schultz speaking: "_Was ist denn los?_"

He couldn't make out the reply, but he knew the voice. Lifting the corner of the tarpaulin, he raised his head and peered out through the cabin. A car stood in the road, the hood raised and the driver standing by looking girlishly helpless. Schultz descended from the truck, and approached her with an air of indulgent gallantry.

LeBeau waited until she had Schultz's full attention, then slipped out of the truck and took cover among the trees which edged the road. From there he was able to watch Magdalena in action. He was impressed; within a minute, she had Schultz right where she wanted him.

It wasn't long before Schultz was peering at the motor. He made a delicate adjustment with thumb and forefinger, and called out, "Try it now." A moment later, the motor hiccoughed into life.

"Oh, that's wonderful," exclaimed Magdalena. "Such a relief. Thank you."

"My pleasure, _Fräulein_," replied Schultz, with a little bow, quite graceful for such a corpulent form. "If there is anything else I can do..."

"You're most kind, but I think it will be fine now," she said sweetly. "I must go. My poor mother will be wondering where I am. Thank you again, Sergeant. I hope I didn't delay you too much."

She got into her car and drove off, and Schultz, with a little self-satisfied swagger, returned to the truck and continued on his way. LeBeau remained where he was.

A couple of minutes later, the car returned, and he darted from the trees and leaped into the passenger seat.

"Nice work, _chérie_," he said. "You handle him almost as well as I do, and you didn't need strudel."

"There's more than one way to a man's heart, Louis," replied Magdalena.

She put the car into motion, and set off slowly towards Hammelburg. She was a good driver, calm and precise; perfect for her cover on General Langbein's staff.

"There's an oilskin envelope in the glove compartment," she said. "The floor plans of the Bernsdorf installation are inside."

He opened the compartment, and found the package, amongst a jumble of maps, old letters and oddments which had found their way there, including one single glove. "That's the first time I've ever found a glove in a glove compartment," he remarked, turning it over in his hands. It was too big for his own hand, and the leather was worn thin in places.

"It was Ernst's." Magdalena's voice was very low. "I can't find the other one, and I can't get rid of it. So I just leave it there."

She had never mentioned her husband before, as far as LeBeau could remember. All he knew of the man was what he'd heard from Jakob, who had told him the SS had been involved, and it had happened before Magdalena joined the Underground. He put the glove back, and adopted a practical tone to cover his emotion: "What about security?"

"Double wire perimeter, one gate, two guards. You need a password to get past them, and the password is changed every day. There are also foot patrols around the inside of the wire, supposed to be at hourly intervals, but the guards are getting lazy about it, and it's sometimes two or three hours between patrols. The compound backs onto a gully, so there is cover for a night approach. Or if Colonel Hogan thinks it better, I can get the password when I drive General Langbein out there, and find a way to pass it on to you, and you can make a direct approach."

"Either way sounds possible," said LeBeau thoughtfully. "We'll let you know."

He pocketed the oilskin envelope and opened the door, with a subdued sigh. While they'd been talking, the rain had started again, and looked as if it had settled in. "It would have to rain today."

"How are you getting back to base?" asked Magdalena.

"With a delivery truck, this evening." It was standard practice not to identify Schnitzer in any way, even when speaking to trusted contacts; the man was too valuable to the operation for any risk to be taken.

"But you can't wait here, in this weather," she protested.

He laughed at that. "You think we haven't waited in worse than this? It's all part of the job."

She put a hand on his arm. "At least you should have something to eat first. I don't have to go back to Bernsdorf yet. I'm to meet with Jakob when he finishes work. We could go and get a meal. Or even just a drink, to ward off the cold."

LeBeau couldn't deny that the offer appealed, and after only a momentary hesitation, he agreed.

"I don't know Hammelburg well." Magdalena blushed a little; it was unlikely she was in the habit of asking men out. "Is there somewhere where we won't be noticed? After all, you're not supposed to be in town."

"Don't worry," replied LeBeau. "I know just the place."


	7. Chapter 7

There were several places in Hammelburg where a man and a woman could spend some time together without attracting attention. The Hofbrau was convenient; close to the edge of town, and the kind of establishment where questions weren't asked.

LeBeau found a table in a quiet corner, and ordered a white wine for Magdalena and a cognac for himself. He sat opposite, watching her with interest. She was looking especially pretty, with a little more colour in her face than usual.

"You look different," he observed.

She blushed. "I did my hair a new way."

"For Schultz's benefit?"

Magdalena shook her head, and a dimple appeared briefly just at the corner of her lips. She dropped her gaze for a moment, and tried to return to a businesslike manner. The effect was adorable, and LeBeau's heart skipped a beat. He cleared his throat.

"Papa Bear will get in touch with Karl when it's time," he said.

"Will it be soon?" She moved a little closer. "They're almost ready to put the new system into operation."

"We're just waiting on supplies," LeBeau explained. "We ran out of..." He glanced around the room, checking to be sure nobody was listening, then leaned closer in the most confidential manner, like a lover whispering to his girl: "...detonators."

"You don't have any?"

LeBeau shrugged. "Carter goes through a lot of them. And the supply drop was delayed. The weather is too bad for flying.

She fell silent for several seconds, a little frown of concentration drawing in her eyebrows. Once again, LeBeau found it distracting.

"Perhaps the Underground can help," she said at last. "I know they hijacked a shipment last month. I have to see Jakob this evening before I go back to Bernsdorf. I can ask for you."

It occurred to LeBeau that there was something bizarre about asking to borrow a supply of detonators. It wasn't exactly like a cup of sugar, after all. He met Magdalena's eyes, realised she'd had the same thought, and they both started to laugh.

"Sometimes this war is ridiculous. The things we have to do, they're just..." said LeBeau, his voice shaking.

"But they seem so reasonable at the time." It was rare to see Magdalena like this. She was too serious, most of the time. He didn't know whether she had always been so, or only since her husband's death. Even now, she sobered quickly.

"I should go," she said.

"Stay a little while," LeBeau urged. "I can't go back to camp for a couple of hours yet. What am I to do, all on my own in Hammelburg till then?"

She hesitated. The laughter had gone from her face. "Louis..." She looked away. "I'm sorry. I like you, a lot. But..."

"Your husband." It didn't surprise him.

"He was everything," she said, and the desolation in her voice went to his heart. "From when we met, we both knew. We were meant to be together, not just for a year, for always. When he was...when he died..." Her voice faded away. "You would never believe it if I told you."

Something in her manner found an echo in LeBeau's spirit. "Try me," he said softly; and after a long silence, she went on.

"There was always this feeling, with Ernst. It was as if we could sense each other's thoughts. Even when we were apart, I knew his moods, and he knew mine. On the day he died...it was so strange, Louis. As he was leaving, I had a feeling I wouldn't see him again. But I just told myself I was being too anxious. Then, when it happened - I felt it. I knew instantly." She broke off again, and looked at him. "You think that's crazy, don't you?"

"No," said LeBeau slowly. "No, I don't think that."

He couldn't tell her about Nina. That unhealed wound lay too deep beneath the skin. He couldn't even bring himself to mention the night bird, though he felt as if she would understand. But he could confide in her about the fear that had followed him for days.

"Do you really believe this?" she asked, when he had told her all he could. There was no hint of scepticism, only a note of wonder in her voice.

"I have to believe it," he replied. "Even if it turns out to be nothing, I can't take the chance."

"And you are sure it is Carter?"

"No. I'm not sure of anything. But I can't keep watch on everyone. There was something - a sign - that pointed to Carter. That's all I have to go on. I can't let it happen. He's my friend, and he doesn't deserve..."

The look of distress on her face brought him to a stop. "I'm sorry," he went on after a moment.

"I thought the same thing, when Ernst...he didn't deserve to be killed like that." Her voice trembled, but it was not clear whether the emotion behind it was grief or anger. "I don't know if I could have saved him. I would have done anything. If you have the chance to save your friend..."

She trailed off, and neither of them spoke for several seconds, as she recognised what LeBeau already knew. Carter's life, as for all of them, was one long sequence of risks. Even if the danger could be staved off this time, there would soon be another mission, and another chance for fate to take its course. But LeBeau had been thinking a lot about that.

"There has to be a chance," he said. "There must be a reason why I've had warning. I've lost many friends, since this war began, and before. If something is telling me about this, it must be because it's not too late to prevent it. At least I have to try."

He could see that she was applying the same logic to her own case, just as he had done when he revisited Nina's death. "I know," he went on quickly. "Don't think about it. It doesn't do any good."

Magdalena nodded, pressing her lips tightly together. "Let me help you," she said. "If there's any way..." Her voice wavered, then failed; instead of finishing her words, she put her hand on top of his.

Her unquestioning belief strengthened his resolve. He gripped her fingers in his own. "If there is, I will find it."

After a moment, Magdalena withdrew her hand. "I really must go, Louis," she said. "I will tell Jakob to contact you. Tell Colonel Hogan to expect a radio message."

LeBeau watched her as she left the Hofbrau. He couldn't see how she could help, but there was something comforting in having been able to confide in someone, even to such a limited degree, and to have the story taken seriously. It did not solve his problem, but it made the weight easier to bear.

It was night, and the compound in darkness apart from the spotlight, when Oskar Schnitzer drove his van into Stalag 13 and pulled up beside the guard dogs' kennels. He greeted the sergeant of the guard with his usual enthusiasm. "You still here, Schultz?"

"Where else would I be?" asked Schultz. "The Russian Front, maybe?"

Schnitzer regarded him without favour. "Why not? You wouldn't feel the cold, with all that padding."

As they talked, LeBeau slipped out of the back of the van, and let himself into the dog enclosure. The dogs greeted him with affection, but he pushed them aside, and moved towards the kennel which stood over the tunnel entrance. There was movement inside the doghouse, and he sighed impatiently; he always had to chase one of the dogs out whenever he needed to get into the tunnel.

Then he caught the gleam of a marble-white eye, peering out at him.

He didn't dare take the time to think. Any moment Schultz might turn around and see him. Averting his eyes, he dived forward and tilted the kennel up. He wasn't sure if he heard, or only imagined, a startled squawk and a thud from inside as he scrambled into the tunnel, but he could at least hope that for once he'd managed to surprise the creature.

Only when he reached the bottom of the ladder did he stop for breath.

There was no doubt in his mind. He had just received the second warning. From now on, he must not let Carter out of his sight.

If he was mistaken - if it was someone other than Carter - then he would just have to live with it.


	8. Chapter 8

The rain eased in the early hours of the morning, but by dawn a heavy fog, rising from the river and from the sodden earth, lay over the compound, obscuring the guard towers and hiding the woods completely.

"So if that patrol's still wandering about, they'll probably all end up with rheumatism," observed Newkirk, around mid-morning. His sister's letter had finally arrived, and he was in fairly lively spirits in consequence; the suggestion he had just made was additional fuel for pleasure.

"You don't get rheumatism from being out in the fog, Newkirk." Kinch wasn't letting that pass. "Otherwise you Londoners would be born with it."

"Ah, no, you see, we're accustomed, Kinch," replied Newkirk. "It's bred in."

"I think you mean inbred." The muttered remark from one of the other men was obviously not meant to be heard, but it was enough to set off a round of cheerful abuse which kept the whole barracks entertained for some time.

It was just as well they had something to occupy them. The fog didn't lift all day, and Klink, ever anxious about the possibility of an escape attempt, ordered all prisoners confined to barracks, and imposed hourly spot checks to ensure nobody tried to take advantage of the reduced level of visibility.

Delaying Schultz's entry to the barracks, to give Kinch enough time to get back up from the radio room below, was easy enough for the first few hours, but got progressively harder as the day went on and the fog didn't dissipate. By mid-afternoon they were running out of excuses for making him wait.

"Try him with the potato pancakes, LeBeau," said Hogan. LeBeau sighed, and started cooking.

His heart wasn't in it, but the _sous-chef_ training held good, and when warning of Schultz's approach came at three o'clock, he was ready with a plate of little golden cakes.

"Hi, Schultzie," he said, slipping out of the barracks and standing with his back against the door. "You're just in time. I only just finished making them."

He lifted the cloth covering the plate, and waved the crispy little temptations below Schultz's nose.

"Oh, LeBeau. Potato pancakes." Schultz's face lit up. It didn't take much to make him smile.

Three of the pancakes vanished rapidly, and a fourth was about to follow them, when Schultz remembered what he was there for. "I have to check the barracks," he mumbled indistinctly.

"It's okay, Schultz. Everybody's there," said LeBeau. "You think any of them would miss out on these? Go on, have another one."

Schultz gave a chuckle. "No, LeBeau, don't tempt me. I have a job to do."

LeBeau held out the plate again. "Just have another pancake." And Schultz yielded. A few minutes, and the plate was empty.

"Are there any more?" asked Schultz, wiping his fingers on his coat.

LeBeau shook his head. "You've eaten all of them."

"In that case, there is no point in coming into the barracks," concluded Schultz, and moved off towards Barracks 3. LeBeau watched him out of sight, then went back inside.

Kinch had just ascended from the tunnel, and was updating Hogan. "Jakob will be at the Aalenau bridge with the detonators at twenty-one hundred hours. He'll wait there for one hour."

Hogan considered. " Carter, you'd better make the rendezvous. If Schultz stays on schedule, he'll come around to check the barracks just before lights-out. As soon as he's gone, you head out. Allowing twenty minutes each way, you should have plenty of time to get there and back before the next check."

"Oh, great," said Carter. "So I get to go out in the fog and catch rheumatism."

"Fair's fair, Andrew. You're the one that ran out of detonators," Newkirk pointed out.

"_Colonel_, are you sure he should go alone?" LeBeau spoke quickly, embarrassed but determined. "If the SS patrol is still out there..."

"There's been no sign of them for two days," Hogan interrupted. "Schultz doesn't know anything about them. Neither does Klink. I think we can assume they've moved on. In any case," he went on, cutting across a further protest, "we can't afford to be two men down, if Klink decides on an extra bed check. We can cover for one, if we have to. Two gets a little tricky"

LeBeau let it go, aware that both Newkirk and Kinch were looking at him. He didn't dare press the point now.

With the meeting planned, Hogan moved on to the next phase. He spread out a large chart on the table. "Okay, this is the plan of the Bernsdorf installation. The main building is here, and the target area is at the western end of the building. The radar transmitter is at ground level; the control room is in a bunker directly beneath. The computer is installed here, next to the control room. Headquarters asked if we could get some photos before we blow it up. The word is that it operates on some whole new relay system. So we split up. Carter and LeBeau, you take care of setting the explosives in the control room and on the transmitter . Newkirk and I will access the computer room and get the photos."

"That's going to cut it fine, Colonel," said Newkirk doubtfully.

"All a matter of synchronisation, Newkirk. We allow a certain amount of time, and then we get out of there, whether we've finished or not. Carter, you'll have to be pretty accurate with the timers."

He studied the diagram thoughtfully. "We want to keep it simple for once," he said at last. "Magdalena told LeBeau there's a weak point in the defence here, where the perimeter wire runs along a gully. That's where we go in."

He looked around at his team. "Any questions?"

"How soon, Colonel?" asked Kinch. He was studying the plan with a look of concentration; even though he wasn't part of the demolition team, he made a practice of knowing what was going on.

Hogan turned to Carter. "How soon can you have everything ready?"

"Once I've got the detonators, couple of days," said Carter easily. "Maybe sooner."

Hogan grinned at him. "You don't rush a work of art, Carter. Today's Thursday. We go on Saturday night. Nice little weekend excursion for us."

He put one hand on LeBeau's shoulder as the meeting broke up. "Is everything okay, LeBeau?"

"Yes, _Colonel_," replied LeBeau. "Everything is fine."

"Good. Let's keep it that way."

LeBeau remained where he was, feeling disgruntled, as Hogan went back into his quarters. This was getting ridiculous. Of all the times to send Carter out on his own...!

Newkirk was watching him again. That was the trouble with barracks life; they got too good at interpreting one's moods. Hogan was already on to him; he suspected Newkirk was, too, and it was unlikely Kinch had missed the signs. In fact, the only man in the barracks who was probably oblivious would be Carter.

It made things difficult for what LeBeau knew he had to do.

It meant disobeying a direct order, would earn him a serious reprimand and possibly more from Hogan, could get both him and Carter caught outside the wire, and might well bring the whole night bird story into the open; but he had to do it anyway.

When Carter left that night, for the meeting with Jakob, LeBeau would be following him.


	9. Chapter 9

One advantage of the fog was that the spotlight which covered the area around the emergency tunnel exit, and which so often gave them trouble, was going to be completely ineffective for once.

Klink had ordered extra patrols outside the perimeter, but a little careful investigation with Schultz had confirmed that the guards appointed to this duty were not performing it with any particular degree of enthusiasm or thoroughness, and Hogan was satisfied that the level of risk was minimal.

As soon as Schultz had been and gone, Carter headed off. Hogan went with him as far as the emergency tunnel exit, and checked by periscope.

"Can't see a thing," he observed. "Be careful out there. Don't get lost."

Carter scowled at him. "You think I can't find the Aalenau Bridge? It's easy. Straight out of the tunnel and turn right."

"Left, Carter."

"Yeah. That's what I meant. Left."

Hogan sighed. Maybe he should have taken LeBeau's advice. Well, it was too late now. "Okay, get going. Good luck."

Carter disappeared up the ladder, and Hogan returned to the barracks. It never occurred to him that anyone would be skulking in the darkness of the first side passage, so he didn't look. As soon as he was safely past, LeBeau slipped out and ran to the ladder.

The mist folded around him as he came above ground; he tumbled out of the exit and crouched beside the tree trunk, momentarily disoriented. There was no sign of Carter in any direction. For a few seconds, LeBeau wavered; then he straightened up, and set off resolutely to the left, towards the Aalenau Bridge.

Presently the mist began to thin, but the absence of any moon meant that visibility was still poor. Straining his eyes, LeBeau soon found a shadow of movement just ahead. He recognised Carter's slightly awkward gait, and with a sense of relief set about following.

It wasn't far to the rendezvous point. Jakob should have already been there, but apparently he'd been delayed. Carter took up a position just on the near side of the bridge, sheltered by the trees but still able to see anyone approaching. Keeping him in sight, LeBeau remained in the thicker growth on the other side of the road, shivering as the cold air worked through to his skin.

Twenty minutes passed, then another twenty. Jakob hadn't appeared, and Carter and LeBeau, separately and independently, were both getting anxious. It wasn't always possible for their contacts to arrive punctually, but this was taking too long.

They would not get back before the next barracks check, and any expectation LeBeau might have had of getting back to camp without being missed was long gone.

From his vantage point, LeBeau saw Carter move out towards the edge of the road and look in both directions. He nearly broke cover himself, to give Carter the reprimand he deserved for being so careless, but he held back, and shuffled a little to the side, so Carter wouldn't see him.

There was nobody on the road. Carter took a couple of steps further along, and LeBeau tensed, every nerve straining to find the danger he was sure was there.

He was so focused on watching for any threat to Carter that he didn't notice the faint rustle of movement behind his own back. Nor did he feel the blow to the back of the head that sent him into immediate darkness.

The sound of his fall reached Carter, who instinctively leapt back into the bushes, his eyes scanning the undergrowth on the other side of the road. He stayed immobile for almost a minute, but hearing nothing more, he began to relax. Probably just a bird, or maybe a rabbit.

The guy wasn't coming, that was obvious. This whole excursion had been a waste of time. With a deep sense of ill-usage, Carter headed for home.

He took a good look around after he crossed the road. The noise he had heard, a few minutes earlier had made him a little uneasy. At first he couldn't make out anything in the darkness; but something caught at the edge of his vision, something lying on the ground at the base of a tree. He moved closer, squinting. Then he threw all caution to the wind, and flung himself down beside LeBeau.

"Oh, no," he stammered. "Oh, jeez, no, Louis."

LeBeau was lying face down, unconscious. Why he was even out here, Carter didn't bother to ask himself. He dragged off one of his gloves, and pressed his fingers against the pulse point of LeBeau's neck, but couldn't find anything. His own heartbeat was too loud. All he could feel was that LeBeau's skin was smeared with something warm and sticky, and he almost stopped breathing himself as he realised what it was.

He groped in his pocket and found his flashlight, but the illumination it gave did nothing to reassure him; the light was too feeble and too artificial. It just showed him what he already knew was there; the trickle of blood from the wound on the back of LeBeau's head, and the absence of any sign of life.

"Oh, please, LeBeau," Carter muttered. "Please, don't..."

He took a deep breath, and tried to think rationally.

LeBeau was badly injured, that was obvious. He needed to be got back to camp. But it was a head injury, and Carter was pretty sure he shouldn't try to move him without help. Yet he couldn't leave him. Someone had done this to him; they might still be hanging around. Even if they weren't, by the time Carter got back to camp and returned, LeBeau could die. Assuming he wasn't already...

"Oh, jeez," said Carter again, almost in despair.

A sudden noise among the trees broke across his attention, and he crouched low over LeBeau's prostrate body, instinctively protective even if it was too late. For almost a minute he stayed motionless, listening. There was no further sound.

_What would you do, Louis?_ Carter straightened slowly. He knew the answer to that question. He could either stay with LeBeau, and hope that sooner or later, someone would come looking for them, and that LeBeau would live that long; or try to carry Louis home himself, probably doing more harm than had already been done. Or he could leave his friend here alone, and go as fast as he could for help.

There wasn't really a choice.

He took off his jacket, and spread it over LeBeau. It was cold on the ground; he needed to be kept warm.

"Stay here, Louis," Carter said, his voice breaking in the middle. "Just stay here, that's all. I'll come back real soon."

Then he scrambled to his feet, and set off at a run in the direction of home base.


	10. Chapter 10

Kinch emerged from the tunnel, dusty and a little breathless. "No sign of him down below either, Colonel," he reported. "Looks like you're right, and he went after Carter."

"What the hell is he playing at?" muttered Hogan. "We'll have Schultz here in five minutes, and not only is Carter not back, but LeBeau's missing as well. This is just perfect."

Newkirk and Kinch looked at him, both aware that any attempt to defend either of the absentees would be a very bad idea.

"Okay," said Hogan, frowning in thought. "We need to give Schultz something else to think about. Something he'd expect of us after lights out."

Three pairs of eyes met, and three voices spoke at once: "Poker game."

Schultz arrived only a few minutes later, but by that time the game already showed every sign of having been in progress since the last spot check.

"Evening, Schultz," murmured Newkirk, with an air of distraction. "Lights out already?"

"Lights out was an hour ago," replied Schultz, peering over Kinch's shoulder. "You should all be asleep by now. And gambling in the barracks is strictly _verboten_."

"Doesn't count if it's not for money, Schultz," said Hogan. "I'll see you, Newkirk, and raise you two liquorice bars and a caramel ripple."

"I fold," sighed Kinch, and so did the man next to him.

All attention turned back to Newkirk. He appeared to be studying his cards, but his eyes, shielded by lowered eyelashes, turned towards Hogan. This game might be no more than a diversion to the rest of them, but Newkirk was already taking it very seriously. The fingers of his free hand moved over the little heap of candy bars in front of him. Then with a delicate movement, he selected a couple of them and pushed them to the centre of the table. "I call."

For a moment there was silence, as the two most impenetrable poker faces in the entire camp engaged. Then Hogan smirked, and spread his cards on the table. "Four queens ."

The smirk on Newkirk's face was even better. "Four kings."

A ripple of laughter went round the barracks. Schultz edged closer. "Is there room in this game for one more?" The lure of candy was always too strong for his fragile virtue.

"Actually, Schultz, that was the last hand," replied Hogan. "Newkirk's the only one with anything left to stake."

"Oh, please - just one hand." Schultz's voice took on a low, pleading tone.

"You got anything to put on the table, Schultz?" said Newkirk, leaning back in his chair, knowing perfectly well Schultz had nothing to offer. "If you're looking for credit, you got no chance."

"But tomorrow we get paid. If I lose, I will pay you back then."

"Schultz, I'm shocked." Hogan looked up at him with an expression of stern reproof. "You're not expecting us to let you play for money, are you? That wouldn't be right."

He stood up. "If there's nothing else, I'd like to get some sleep. Same time tomorrow night, men."

"And you can just drop that peanut brittle, Schultz," added Newkirk. "Oh, yes, I saw you. Put it back right now."

Schultz scowled, and scuttled from the barracks without returning the disputed item.

A collective sigh of relief followed the closing of the door. Hogan held up a hand. "Don't relax yet. If Carter and LeBeau don't get back before the next spot check, all hell's going to break loose."

"We've probably got an hour," said Kinch dubiously. "Should we go and look for them?"

Hogan prepared to consider the suggestion, then turned sharply as a tapping noise from below alerted him to an arrival at the tunnel entrance. He strode across to the bunk over the tunnel, and struck the release.

"Where the hell have you been?" he snapped, as Carter appeared. Then, as he took in the look on Carter's face, his own expression changed. "What happened?"

Carter's breathing was laboured; he'd run almost all the way from the bridge back to the emergency exit, and sprinted the whole length of the tunnel to the barracks. "LeBeau's hurt," he gasped. "Back at the bridge. He's been hit on the head. It's bad, Colonel."

"Hold it!" Hogan's voice cut across the mass movement towards the tunnel. "We can't all go. Newkirk and Kinch, you're with me. Carter, stay here and get your breath back."

"You won't find him," Carter replied. "He's in the trees. I know where he is."

He was right, and Hogan yielded. "Okay. Let's move."

"Jakob never showed up," Carter panted, as they returned to the emergency exit. "He should have already been there when I got to the bridge, but he wasn't, and he never showed. I waited as long as I could. I didn't see anyone."

"What about LeBeau?" asked Hogan brusquely.

"I found him when I started back." Carter was clearly in shock, although he had steadied once the responsibility no longer rested on his shoulders. "He was already down then. I was too scared to move him. They say when it's a head injury..." He broke off, as they reached the foot of the ladder.

Hogan was desperately anxious to reach LeBeau without delay, but running stupid risks wasn't going to help. With Newkirk already on the ladder, he called a halt, and raised the periscope.

"Fog's lifting," he said. "Play it safe. Newkirk, go a hundred yards towards the bridge, then wait. Kinch, you go out thirty seconds after Newkirk. Carter, stay with me."

As Newkirk disappeared into the darkness above, Kinch took up position at the ladder. "So what are you thinking, Colonel? The SS patrol, maybe?"

"Maybe. But I don't think so," murmured Hogan. "They'd have arrested him, or shot him, and no way would they have left Carter. Same with the Stalag 13 guards." In the dim light, his expression was unreadable, and he didn't say anything more before Kinch left.

"Colonel...?" faltered Carter.

He was obviously in need of reassurance. Hogan answered quickly. "Okay, Carter. You did the right thing."

He glanced up towards the top of the ladder. "Let's go."

The mist was still lying in thin patches, making ghosts of the trees. Carter took the lead, for once sure of his way.

LeBeau hadn't moved. Hogan bent over him, searching for signs that he was still living.

"He's breathing," he murmured. Carter gasped, and leaned against the nearest tree, unsteady with relief.

Kinch was at LeBeau's other side. "It's not good, Colonel," he whispered, examining the wound carefully, "but I don't think anything's broken. If we're careful, we should be able to move him safely."

Hogan thought quickly. "We'll never get him down the ladder," he said. "We'll have to go in through the wire. Carter, go on ahead, and watch for patrols."

Kinch and Newkirk were already lifting their friend. It was going to be a slow return to camp.

They got within sight of the wire before Carter, still in the lead, suddenly dropped to a crouch among the bushes. Hogan waved the others back, and they lowered LeBeau to the ground and waited.

Carter backed towards them, still half-crouching. Inevitably, he tripped over a protruding tree root, and fell almost on top of Hogan. All in the day's work; he didn't bat an eyelid.

"Goons," he whispered. "Ours, I think. Right between us and the wire. And they're not moving."

Hogan didn't waste breath uttering the words which rose to his lips. He crept forward, peering through the low-hanging branches. Then he retreated again. "Kühn, and a couple of the others." He heard a restless movement from Newkirk, and a sigh of impatience from Kinch. They knew all about Kühn; the man was trouble. Too lazy to do his job properly, but happy enough to take advantage of any opportunity to appear diligent. Catching five prisoners outside camp - including the senior POW officer - would be all his dreams coming true at once.

They were going to have to distract him; and one of them would have to be the fall guy for it. Hogan sighed. "I need a volunteer," he said quietly. "Thank you, Newkirk."

He couldn't see Newkirk's face in the dark, but he could imagine the expression on the Englishman's face. There was no immediate response, but after a few tense moments, Newkirk growled something which might have been agreement, but probably wasn't. He bent over LeBeau for a moment, one hand on his friend's arm.

"You better have a good reason for this, Louis," he muttered fiercely. Then, without any other acknowledgement, he rose and slipped away. The others waited silently.

Presently they heard shouting from some distance away, beyond the emergency tunnel entrance; and then a couple of shots. Alarm bells sounded within the compound, and it was safe to assume the spotlights were turned towards the commotion. Hogan gestured to Carter to go ahead, and turned to assist with carrying the injured man, but Kinch had already lifted LeBeau in his arms. "It'll be quicker, Colonel," he murmured; and there wasn't time to argue.

A section of the wire had been rigged to slide up and give access to and from the compound. By the time Hogan and Kinch got there, Carter had already raised it as high as it would go. Hogan ducked under, and helped Kinch to get inside with LeBeau. A couple of minutes more, and they gained the safety of the barracks.

"My quarters," said Hogan curtly. "Carter, get into your bunk. The rest of you better be asleep when Klink sends for me. Which will be any minute now."

He followed Kinch into his own quarters, and they laid LeBeau in the lower bunk. Kinch moved back a little; Carter, completely disregarding orders, had followed them in, and stood just inside the door.

Hogan sat on the edge of the bunk, his eyes on LeBeau's pale, lifeless face. Beneath the anxious dread which filled his conscious thought, there was still a spark of anger, and a sense of aggrieved bewilderment.

LeBeau had disobeyed a clear directive. He should never have been out there for this to happen. If he recovered - and Hogan was praying inwardly that he would recover - he was going to find himself in a lot of trouble.


	11. Chapter 11

Hogan was certain he would be sent for within a few minutes after they got back, and his instinct was sound. Scarcely four minutes elapsed before an outbreak of protesting voices in the barracks alerted him to the arrival of one of the guards; Schultz, to be precise, who came into Hogan's quarters without ceremony, opening the door so quickly that it almost knocked Carter to the floor.

"Colonel Hogan, there is a special roll call, and you have to go to the Kommandant's office at once," said Schultz. "The _Engländer_ was found outside the wire...what is going on here?"

There was no point in trying to hide LeBeau's injury. "LeBeau had an accident," replied Hogan brusquely, extemporising rapidly. "He hit his head falling out of his bunk."

"Oh, that is terrible." Schultz crept closer. "Is it very bad?"

"It's not good. He may never make strudel again."

Schultz's eyes widened. "Never? No, I could not bear...I mean, poor LeBeau. We must take him to the hospital at once."

Kinch and Hogan exchanged looks. They both knew LeBeau needed medical attention, but the risk was high; any doctor would notice very quickly that the injury was not from a fall. In addition, if -_when_ LeBeau started coming out of it, he might well let something slip concerning the Stalag 13 operation.

It was one of those command decisions Hogan dreaded.

"I don't know if that's necessary, Schultz," he said slowly. "Kinch, isn't there an army medic in one of the other barracks?"

Kinch wrinkled his brow in thought. "Sergeant Wilson, Barracks 3," he replied.

"I will have him brought over." Schultz spoke with decision. "But in the meantime, you are to report to the Kommandant, and the prisoners must line up for roll-call."

He stood aside, and gestured towards the door. Hogan had no choice but to comply. He looked down at LeBeau one more time, searching for any sign of animation, but there was nothing.

"At least let someone stay with him, Schultz," he said.

Schultz considered the request, and decided to be generous. "One man can stay."

Carter and Kinch both spoke at once, claiming the privilege. Hogan held up his hand to silence them. "Kinch, you stay with him." He glanced apologetically at Carter, and left the barracks.

As he entered Klink's office, he glanced once at Newkirk, and recognised the sharp anxiety beneath his usual self-possessed expression. There was nothing he could say right now in reassurance, but he nodded slightly. Then he shot a sideways glance at Kühn, who was standing behind Newkirk, looking pleased with himself. They were going to have to do something about him, when they had the time.

"Well, Hogan, what do you have to say to this?" Klink leaned back in his chair, and spoke with smug self-satisfaction. "How often must your men try before they accept that this is their home now? There is no escape from Stalag 13. I have said it before. I say it now, and I will continue to say it. So why do they continue to waste their time?"

Hogan shrugged. "Well, Kommandant, you know every man needs a hobby. And there's not enough jigsaw puzzles to go round, so Newkirk's trying something new."

"A hobby," said Klink sceptically, and turned his monocle towards the offender.

"Well, it keeps me off the streets," explained Newkirk.

"You will be off the streets for some time," the Kommandant growled. "In the cooler, to be precise. Thirty days."

Newkirk accepted the sentence with apparent resignation, but Hogan felt obliged to protest. "Kommandant, that's not fair. It's your fault he was out there."

"_My_ fault? How is it my fault, Hogan?"

"You won't let us have more jigsaw puzzles," Hogan informed him, righteously indignant.

Whatever reply Klink might have made was stopped in its tracks, as Schultz trundled into the office. "_Herr Kommandant_, I beg to report, all present...or accounted for."

"What do you mean, 'or', Schultz?" said Klink, in the weary tone that developed under the combined influence of Hogan and Schultz. "You are supposed to say 'and'. 'All present _and_ accounted for.' Not 'or'."

"Yes, but, _Herr Kommandant_, some of the men are accounted for, but not exactly present," explained Schultz. "Colonel Hogan, for example, is here, and therefore not at roll-call. Newkirk is also here. And LeBeau is in bed, and Kinchloe..."

"LeBeau is in bed? Why is LeBeau in bed?"

"LeBeau had a fall, he hit his head," Hogan explained shortly.

Klink sent a suspicious glare at Newkirk. "On the very night that one man tries to escape, another man has an accident?"

"Bad timing on LeBeau's part, I must say," said Newkirk helpfully. His tone was bland enough, but Hogan could tell how anxious he was.

"Don't you think it was a little dishonourable, Newkirk, taking advantage of a comrade's misfortune?" Klink's face seemed to lengthen, as he adopted an air of disapproval. "What is it they say in your country? It's not cricket, is it?"

Newkirk reddened, and sent a look at Hogan, unsure how to field that one; and Hogan, reading his uncertainty, took the catch himself. "Kommandant, that's hardly sporting of you. Of course Newkirk didn't know about LeBeau. He'd already gone over the wire before the accident happened."

"_Herr Kommandant_, the prisoner was only just outside the wire when we found him," interrupted Kühn. "He cannot have been more than two minutes from the barracks."

"No, it was longer than that. Thing is, you see, I got a bit lost in the fog," said Newkirk quickly. "Thought I was well on the way to the railway siding at Meilenheim, but I'd got turned right round. Never had much sense of direction."

"That's true," added Hogan. "He gets lost on the way to the latrine on dark nights, we have to send search parties sometimes."

"Honest, gov - Kommandant, beg pardon - I'd never have gone off if I'd known my little mate LeBeau was hurt." There could be no doubting Newkirk's sincerity as he spoke, and Klink was moved in spite of his cynicism.

"Very well," he said, after a few tense moments. "But the sentence stands. Thirty days. And if I find out you knew anything about LeBeau's mishap, things will go very badly for you. Kühn, escort this man to the cooler. Schultz, dismiss the prisoners, and see they return to the barracks."

He turned to Hogan. "How badly injured is LeBeau?"

Hogan gave a slight shrug, unconsciously despondent. "Schultz said he'd let the medic from Barracks 3 have a look."

"If it's serious, he can be sent to the hospital." It was a magnanimous offer, but Klink had reason to make the offer. LeBeau's culinary skills were valuable to him, too valuable to be given up lightly.

For a few seconds Hogan wavered. His own inclination was to get LeBeau the specialised medical treatment he probably needed. But if the doctors realised LeBeau's injury was the result of an attack rather than a fall, Newkirk might be blamed; Klink was already suspicious. Hogan had no choice, though he knew he'd have at least one sleepless night over it.

"Thanks for the offer, Kommandant," he said. "I'll see what Wilson thinks."

"You will, of course, keep me informed." Klink was already losing interest, obviously ready to return to bed for the few night hours remaining. "Dismissed."

The prisoners were still dispersing as Hogan crossed the compound. Carter was waiting by the barracks door. "Is Newkirk okay?" he asked.

"He got thirty days," replied Hogan shortly.

"Boy, LeBeau really started something, didn't he?"

"He sure did." Hogan went on into his quarters, with Carter at his heels. "Well?"

Wilson, the medic from Barracks 3, looked up. "Could be worse. I can't find any sign of a fractured skull or any other major damage. But until he comes round, I can't say anything else. And that could take some time."

"Where's Kinch?"

"Gone down to the radio room to try to contact the Underground, see why their man never showed up tonight." Wilson's eyes, and his attention turned back to the patient. "He may need better treatment than we can give him here. For now it's better not to move him. I'll stay with him, if you want to get some sleep."

"Thanks, Wilson," said Hogan. But he met Carter's eyes, and knew neither of them would be sleeping tonight.


	12. Chapter 12

_Louis is in a dark place. So dark, and so far from the outside world, that he hardly remembers ever being anywhere else._

_He isn't sure how he got here. Thinking about it - thinking at all - is too hard. So he doesn't try, but just lets himself drift. It's not an unpleasant sensation, certainly less uncomfortable than wherever he was before. The idea of floating here forever, between worlds, feels right._

_Nothing sad, nothing frightening, can touch him here. _

_Occasionally he senses vaguely that someone is there, just outside the darkness in which he is cradled. Now and then the sound of voices, distant and unclear, disturbs the silence. They are voices he knows, voices he should respond to, but so peaceful and comforting is this small dark timeless ocean of unconsciousness, he can't bear to leave it._

_So he drifts on, not quite on earth, not quite detached from earth, and the darkness flows around him._

"Any change?"

Kinch's query greeted Hogan as soon as he came into the radio room.

"Nothing," he replied. "Wilson's still with him, he says we won't know until he wakes up. And it's going to be a long wait."

"What about Newkirk?"

"Thirty days in solitary." Hogan leaned on the radio desk. "What the hell was he thinking?" he murmured. "I thought he could be trusted."

"He's been acting strange for days," observed Kinch.

"Yeah. Something's got to him." Hogan pursed his lips. "He said Carter shouldn't go out alone. Between you and me, Kinch, he was right. If he hadn't gone along, it might have been Carter who was attacked. And we might not have found him for hours. We could have lost him. At least LeBeau's still alive. But when he comes to..."

He changed the subject. "Did you get anything from the Underground?"

"Yes and no. They've got no idea where Jakob is. Karl didn't even know he was supposed to be meeting Carter, though he knew we'd asked for help. Looks like Jakob was playing a lone hand."

They both knew what that could mean. The Hammelburg organisation didn't operate like that. If Jakob had set up a meeting without consulting his cell leader - a meeting that had ended as badly as this one - then it was time to start looking very closely at his loyalties.

Hogan folded his arms, and took a few steps back and forth. "Get on to London," he said at last. "We'll try for another supply drop. And when it arrives, we send out two men to pick it up. No matter what's going on."

He didn't say anything about the mission; it didn't need to be said. With no detonators for the demolition charges, Newkirk in the cooler and LeBeau comatose, nothing was going to happen any time soon.

_

* * *

_

Louis is still drifting. He is aware now of a current in the darkness, going in one direction, then in another. It worries him; it seems to want to take him along, but he doesn't know where.

_The voices are starting to annoy him, too. There is something urgent about them, something that demands he make a decision. He doesn't want to. It's easier to stay still._

_But there is one voice that reaches past the shell of inertia that surrounds him. He can't bring a corresponding name to mind, but there is something important that he has to do, something that concerns the owner of that voice. _

_The current has carried him a long way, and even that voice seems very distant now. To get back to where he was demands more of an effort than he feels capable of._

Carter had gone straight back to LeBeau's bedside as soon as the special assembly had ended, and remained there for the rest of the night, leaving only for the regular morning roll-call, then returning to his vigil.

Hogan tried to send him off to rest, but he pleaded to be allowed to stay, and Wilson added his support. "He seems to respond better to Carter's voice than yours or mine, Colonel. It's worth trying, anyway."

So Carter stayed with LeBeau, occasionally talking to him, while Wilson kept watch for the subtle, almost imperceptible signs that suggested LeBeau was still within reach.

_

* * *

_

He is aware now that time is passing while he remains here in the darkness. It no longer feels quite so calm and restful. He knows now that he has to make a decision: to follow the current further, or to respond to the voices calling him back; and he has a clear sense of a duty that has to be fulfilled, though he is not quite sure what he is meant to do.

_It means losing touch with the tranquillity that has held him here, and he knows he may never know this kind of peace again, but he can't ignore a call of such urgency. _

_With a sense of regret, he starts the journey home, and as the darkness opens around him, and he realises just how much his head hurts, and how confused he is about what happened to bring him here, he almost retreats. But he presses on, and as he reaches the surface, a name comes to him._

"Carter...?"

Scarcely a whisper, but Hogan, taking a turn at his bedside while Wilson had a break, heard it, and leaned forward, while Carter, who had finally yielded to his own exhaustion and was halfway out the door, turned back so quickly he almost fell over.

LeBeau's eyes remained closed, but there was an almost imperceptible movement of his lips.

"LeBeau, can you hear me?" said Hogan.

It seemed as if there would be no response, but then came another distant murmur: "André..."

Hogan gestured Carter forward. "Gently, Carter," he said. "Just keep talking to him. I'll get Wilson."

He went on the word, and Carter crouched beside LeBeau, searching for signs of awareness, not sure what he could say that might bring his friend back from the edge of the dark.

"It's okay, LeBeau," he murmured. "We're back at camp. You can wake up now. Please, Louis, just wake up. I know you can, if you want to."

He thought he saw a tiny flicker of movement beneath the eyelids, and perhaps heard a faint sound, a whisper or a sigh. But it seemed as if LeBeau was drifting away again.

"Come on, Louis." Carter's voice went up under the stress of the situation. "You made it this far. Don't go back on us now."

The change in tone must have got through; LeBeau's eyes fluttered, then opened slowly; moved vaguely, as if he couldn't make out where he was, then slowly focused on Carter. A wrinkle appeared between his eyebrows, and another indistinct murmur came from his lips. It sounded French, but was too unclear for Carter to be sure.

"That's better, Louis," he said. "Boy, you gave us a scare."

He looked over his shoulder as Wilson came through the door. "He's awake," he said.

Wilson bent over the patient. "Give me some space, Carter," he said curtly. But as Carter tried to move away, he stopped. LeBeau's hand had got hold of his sleeve, and was gripping it like a life-line. Hogan, waiting by the door, watched with keen anxiety.

"Okay, Carter, just stay there," said Wilson quietly. "LeBeau, look at me. Now, please. Can you hear me?"

"_Oui...c'est que...j'ai..._" LeBeau's voice, faint and inconsistent, trailed off into incoherent murmurs.

"LeBeau, I told you to look at me." Wilson spoke in a tone of command that demanded attention.

"_Ne parle pas si fort..._" That sounded better; slightly irritable, and not so confused. LeBeau's eyes turned towards Wilson, then drifted back to Carter. "_Alors...suis-je...?_"

"Anyone in this barracks other than LeBeau speak French?" asked Wilson.

"Kinch. I'll get him." Hogan vanished again.

By the time he returned, Carter had extricated himself, and retreated to the corner, leaving a clear space for Kinch to join Wilson.

"He seems confused, but I can't tell what he's saying," the medic explained. In fact LeBeau was starting to look cross rather than confused. He greeted Kinch with a low murmur of French, to which Kinch responded, after a brief moment of astonished silence.

"Wants to know if he's dead," he explained in a quick aside. "I've set him straight."

LeBeau glanced from him to Wilson. "_Mais...pourquoi...?_" His voice petered out again, and the puzzled look deepened.

"Okay, LeBeau, don't look so worried," said Wilson. He glanced at Kinch. "Ask him if he remembers what happened."

"_Je te comprends, Wilson_," LeBeau put in irritably.

"He understands," Kinch put in.

"That's something, anyway," said Wilson. "Well?"

Under four pairs of eyes, LeBeau wilted slightly. His eyes turned from Wilson to Kinch, then to Hogan, and finally fixed on Carter. A look of concentration grew on his face. Then he sighed, and Kinch didn't have to translate the reply.

"_Non. Je ne me rappelle rien._"


	13. Chapter 13

LeBeau slept on and off for almost twenty-four hours, occasionally waking, responding irritably to Wilson's questions, then drifting off again. After a short while he started answering in English, to everyone's relief.

"Can you imagine if he had to learn it all over again?" said Carter, after he'd got some sleep himself. "That'd be real tough."

The Kommandant made a brief visit after lunch, coinciding with one of LeBeau's waking periods. "How is he?" he asked in a stage whisper.

"Cantankerous, mostly," replied Wilson, as LeBeau, opening his eyes and regarding Klink with disfavour, went off into a low-voiced torrent of complaint in his own language.

"What's he saying?" asked the Kommandant.

With a straight face, Kinch ad-libbed: "He thinks the bunks are too narrow, and it's a miracle he wasn't killed, falling from that height, and that he'll be consulting his lawyer after the war."

LeBeau added a further comment, still in French, and Klink's brow wrinkled.

"Why is he only speaking French? He knows I don't understand."

"Concussion can have a few side-effects," explained Wilson. "He may get his other language skills back later. These things take time, Kommandant."

Kinch had made no attempt to translate any further; from the way he was pressing his lips together, trying not to laugh, it was not something they wanted Klink to hear.

"I'm still not satisfied with this," the Kommandant said slowly. "Hogan, you will inform me the minute LeBeau is ready to answer questions in a civilised language."

"Of course, Kommandant." Hogan remained as sober as Klink, while Kinch and Wilson struggled to contain their mirth. "The very minute. Even if it's the middle of the night, I'll be right over there to tell you."

Klink glared at him. "Office hours will do, Hogan." He swept out of Hogan's quarters and left the barracks.

Hogan turned a critical gaze on LeBeau. "What was that about?"

"I couldn't resist," replied LeBeau.

"Looks like he's on the way to recovery," remarked Kinch dryly. Wilson didn't appear so confident, and refused to allow any questions to be asked of the patient until evening, in spite of Hogan's visible impatience.

When he was finally permitted a few words in private, he came straight to the point, although in view of LeBeau's pallor and languid air, he kept his voice quiet. "LeBeau, you were out in the woods last night without permission. Do you have an explanation for that?"

LeBeau took his time replying. He still appeared disoriented; started to speak once or twice, then stopped, his face drawn with bewilderment.

"In the woods?" he murmured at last. "_Mon Colonel_..." He broke off again, clearly at a loss.

"Last night," repeated Hogan. "Carter had a meeting with Jakob, you tagged along. Do you remember?"

LeBeau shook his head slowly. "Carter...is Carter okay?"

"Fine. He got a bad scare when he found you. LeBeau, try to think. This is serious. I need to know why you followed Carter, and what happened out there."

His tone was serious enough to set LeBeau searching for an answer. But after a minute or so, he sighed. "I don't remember anything."

Hogan regarded him keenly. "What's the last thing you do remember?"

"I went to gather mushrooms," said LeBeau slowly. "I was..." His voice trailed off, and his eyes widened, as if he'd seen something which frightened him. Hogan, startled, was on the point of calling for Wilson, when LeBeau suddenly relaxed. "That's all, _mon Colonel_. I don't remember anything else."

He sounded tired, and looked so troubled and despondent that Hogan decided to let it go for now. "Okay, LeBeau. But if anything comes to you, tell me right away, or if I'm not around, tell Wilson. Is that clear?"

"_Oui, mon Colonel_." LeBeau's voice died away, and he closed his eyes again.

There had been no further word from Karl. But in the early hours of the morning, as Kinch finished receiving a late transmission from London, a faint noise from the emergency tunnel caught his ear.

Nobody but him should have been down there.

He wasn't easily spooked, but unexpected sounds from any of the tunnels was one thing that got to him. He took off the headset, with a slow, steady movement, and reached for the baseball bat he kept close at hand.

More sounds reached him as he moved towards the emergency tunnel; slow, hesitant footsteps, getting closer. He took up position at the entrance, just to the side, and raised the bat.

Then as the intruder came into sight, he relaxed slightly.

"Hold it right there," he said. "Now, who are you, and how did you find your way here?"

The girl blinked at him in the dim light. "I heard about Louis," she whispered. "Karl told me he was hurt. Please, I want to see him."

"You didn't answer either question." Kinch was not giving any ground, though he had guessed who she was.

"Magdalena, from Bernsdorf." She gazed up at him, wide-eyed. "Is he badly hurt?"

Kinch lowered the bat slowly. "He's been conscious." He considered, then said abruptly, "Wait here."

He scaled the ladder to the barracks. As the bunk covering the entrance went up, Carter lifted his head and peered across from his own bunk. "Whassup?" he mumbled indistinctly.

"I need Colonel Hogan down here, now," Kinch hissed back.

"Gee, what's a guy got to do to get some sleep round here?" Carter rolled out of bed and went to fetch Hogan, while Kinch returned to the tunnel. Magdalena was still waiting at the bottom of the ladder.

"Colonel Hogan will be down in a minute," he said. "Just take it easy."

She was trembling a little; possibly because of the cold down here, but he didn't think so.

Only a couple of minutes later, Hogan came down the ladder. He regarded the visitor keenly.

"You know you're not supposed to be here," he said sharply.

"I want to see Louis," she replied with determination. "Please, Colonel Hogan, let me see him."

"He's asleep right now. And women aren't allowed in the barracks." Hogan's voice softened a little, the girl's distress was so obvious. "He's doing okay, Magdalena. But you can't see him."

"Just for a minute. I won't wake him."

"It's not that. But if you're seen..."

"Colonel, it's probably pretty safe," observed Kinch dispassionately. "The guards won't be around till roll-call, that's a couple of hours yet."

Apparently Kinch wasn't proof against the pleading look in those big dark eyes, either. Hogan sighed. "Okay. Two minutes."

The look on Wilson's face, when Hogan escorted LeBeau's visitor into the office, was beautiful.

"Ma'am...?" he murmured, unsure what else to say.

She ignored him, gazing at LeBeau with wide, grieving eyes. "Is he..."

"Sleeping. He's doing okay," replied Wilson, with a startled glance at Hogan.

Anything else he might have said was interrupted. Apparently the rare sound of a woman's voice was enough to get through to LeBeau. He stirred, and opened his eyes, and the girl abandoned all restraint, and darted forward. Wilson had to move quickly to prevent her from throwing herself at him.

"Louis, I'm sorry," she whispered, almost beside herself. LeBeau stared at her, lost for words.

"It was my fault. Jakob..." She broke off with a sob, then went on more quietly. "He was angry with me, he thought...Louis and I..."

"Hold it a minute," Hogan interrupted. "LeBeau was never meant to be at that meeting. Jakob couldn't have known he'd be there."

"I know. I think Jakob had every intention of making the delivery as requested, but when he saw Louis..." She stopped again, biting her lip.

"Not sure about that, Magdalena," observed Hogan. "He never told Karl about the meeting. There's more going on here than we know about."

"_Colonel_..." LeBeau raised himself on one elbow.

"Easy, LeBeau," said Wilson, putting a hand on his shoulder. LeBeau brushed it off impatiently.

"There was something..." His eyes went past Magdalena, seeming to focus on the wall behind her. He was very pale, and a shimmer of perspiration gleamed on his forehead.

"I think that's enough." Wilson glanced at Hogan. "You'd better get her out of here, Colonel."

In spite of Magdalena's obvious reluctance, Hogan did just that. Wilson dimmed the light, and resumed his watch.

And LeBeau, through half-closed eyes, watched the night bird as it twitched and scrabbled in the corner of the room, while the crumpled page of his memory slowly began to unfold.

Something had gone terribly wrong. He wasn't sure any more. Not of anything.


	14. Chapter 14

"You better stay here till morning," said Hogan. "It's not safe in the woods right now."

He had followed Magdalena into the tunnel, and stood at the foot of the ladder, studying her with unusual intensity.

She shook her head, with a slight frown. "General Langbein will be expecting me at eight o'clock. We can't afford to raise suspicion now. I will be careful, Colonel."

He continued to look at her for several seconds; she gazed back, determined.

"Okay," he said at last. "Give me a couple of minutes to speak to Kinch, and I'll see you as far as the road."

He went to the radio room. Kinch looked up. "There was a message from London, Colonel, just before she turned up. Bomber command are planning a series of raids on the armaments factories to the east of Bernsdorf. That radar facility has to be put out of commission, as a matter of urgency. The supply drop with the detonators is scheduled for tonight, at twenty-three hundred hours." He paused, but Hogan didn't reply. He seemed deep in thought.

"Colonel," Kinch went on, "what do you want to do from here?"

Hogan shifted his weight, and took a deep breath. "Okay," he said at last. "Carter and I will meet the supply drop. I want you to start making some enquiries - not locally, try Düsseldorf if you can reach them. We need any information we can get on everyone from Hammelburg who's been involved in this assignment. That means everyone in Karl's group, especially Jakob."

"And Magdalena?"

"Her, too," replied Hogan. "There's something about her story that just doesn't fit." He was frowning slightly. "LeBeau may have picked up some kind of hint somewhere that made him suspicious. If he did, it's most likely to have come from her."

"She seems real worried about him," Kinch remarked. "I don't think that was put on, Colonel."

"No, that looked genuine. But she knew about the meeting, which hardly anyone else did." Hogan rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I'll talk to LeBeau again later. He must have had some idea that something was wrong, otherwise he wouldn't have gone after Carter. He's going to have to come up with some answers."

He didn't know it, but the chances of getting any information out of LeBeau had taken a dive. Wilson remained concerned, and his anxiety grew as night turned to day, and the patient got more restless and preoccupied.

"What's the problem, LeBeau?" he asked at last.

LeBeau had been gazing at the corner again; he gave a start, and looked up with wide, startled eyes. Then he pulled himself together. "Nothing," he replied curtly.

He turned away and closed his eyes. Wilson, dissatisfied, turned his attention to the empty corner. It didn't tell him anything.

LeBeau, by an effort of will, kept still for some time. He was as far from sleep as he'd ever been.

_It's finally happened_, he thought, over and over. _I've gone crazy. They were right, after all.._

He tried to push the thought away, but it persisted; and in the corner, the night bird twitched, and uttered short gabbling noises, and refused to go away. For the first time, he had seen it by daylight. It didn't look any less unnatural.

Hogan relieved Wilson's watch shortly after roll-call.

"How's he doing?" he asked, seeing that LeBeau appeared to be asleep.

Wilson shrugged slightly. "Physically? Seems to be doing well. Don't know about his mental state."

"Any chance of getting an explanation out of him?"

"You can try," said Wilson. He got up, and bent over LeBeau. "Louis, you got a visitor."

"Tell him I died."

"That's not funny, LeBeau."

LeBeau opened his eyes, and gave the medic a scowl which made it clear, it hadn't been meant as a joke.

"Go get some sleep, Wilson," said Hogan quietly. He took the medic's place, and sat looking at LeBeau, with a grave, meditative expression.

"How are you feeling now?" he asked.

"Fine. Perfect. I could not be feeling better." LeBeau's tone was only just on the safe side of insubordinate, but Hogan let it pass, aware that the layer of antagonism was barely skin deep.

"Okay, LeBeau," he said. "We've been advised that the Bernsdorf job has to go ahead. Now as things stand, I've got Newkirk in the cooler, and you out of action. That leaves me seriously undermanned. I can't call on Karl and his team, until we know what happened out there. Have you remembered anything at all?"

"No, _mon Colonel_," replied LeBeau, very quietly.

"Why did you follow Carter to that meeting?"

LeBeau's eyes turned to the corner again. "I must have been mistaken," he murmured. "I thought..." He broke off, and shook his head. "I'm sorry, _Colonel_. I just can't explain."

"That's not good enough, LeBeau," said Hogan sharply. "If you know something and you're keeping it back, then you're putting the rest of us at risk. I'll ask you one more time. Why did you go after Carter?" He waited, but LeBeau had fallen back into sullen silence. "Did you hear something from Magdalena?"

LeBeau sat up with a jerk. "Magdalena? You don't think..." He finished with a gasp, as a wave of pain broke over his head.

"Take it easy," said Hogan. "I haven't come to any conclusions yet."

"But..." LeBeau dropped back onto the mattress, panting for breath. "What if the explanation is unbelievable?" he went on unsteadily, when he'd recovered a little. "What if I just...what if it was a premonition?"

Hogan sighed. "Don't even try it, LeBeau."

There was a long pause. Hogan kept his eyes on LeBeau. He still looked slightly confused, as if he couldn't quite understand what had happened . Finally he shifted restlessly, and looked up at the colonel.

"There's no other excuse I can give you, _mon Colonel_," he said, his voice very low. "I just had a bad feeling about that meeting."

It was unusual to see him so cast down. Hogan couldn't doubt his sincerity, and in spite of his own ingrained scepticism he found himself wondering briefly whether it could be just that - not a premonition, but some kind of intuitive instinct that had warned LeBeau of an unsuspected danger. It would be easier to accept that, than to believe LeBeau would wilfully hold back information.

In any case, it was clear there was nothing more to be got from him now. Hogan leaned back in his chair, and let the matter drop.

LeBeau appeared to be drifting off to sleep again. But behind half-closed eyes, he was thinking rapidly, desperately trying to work out what to do. The whole situation seemed to have changed, when he received that blow to the head; he was too tired, and in too much pain, to work it out.

Some time later - he wasn't sure how long - the door opened. "Colonel?" It was Carter. "Wilson says you should take a break."

"It's okay, Carter," Hogan replied. "I'll stay with him for a while."

"Well, gee, Colonel, he's not going anywhere," said Carter reasonably. "I can sit with him. I got nothing else to do."

A moment of hesitation, then Hogan gave way, let Carter take his place, and left the room. And the night bird made a harsh, angry chattering noise, and advanced from its corner with an erratic hopping motion. It turned one marble eye towards Carter, then abruptly snapped at his leg. Carter didn't seem aware of its presence, but he twitched slightly, and reached down to scratch just below the knee.

The bird looked at LeBeau, and gave another rasping croak. LeBeau almost stopped breathing. This was something new.

"You okay, Carter?" he asked, his voice weakened by the dryness of his throat.

Carter blinked at him. "Sure. Say, shouldn't I be asking you that?"

"Perhaps," murmured LeBeau, his eyes moving back towards the bird. It jerked its head up and down, and ruffled its feathers, apparently satisfied it had got its message through.

LeBeau suppressed a shiver. Either he really was delusional, or the creature was still trying to warn him, and had found the wherewithal not only to stay within his perception on a continual basis, but to reach out from whatever non-existent space it occupied, and make its presence felt, however dimly, by a third party. It appeared the danger might be greater now than ever, and apparently Carter was still involved.

LeBeau's first intervention had not ended well. He felt sick when he thought what the consequences might be if he had to take further action. But he couldn't bring himself to confide in anyone.

_They'll think I'm crazy,_ he thought; and he couldn't face it. It had been bad enough after Nina's death. Never again. Especially if it was true.


	15. Chapter 15

Midnight came and went; Kinch, alone in the radio room below the barracks, was feeling more uptight than usual. He was never happy while waiting for the others to return from outside excursions, and LeBeau's injury, with its attendant mystery, had only increased his anxiety. Until Hogan and Carter returned from meeting the supply drop, he wouldn't be able to relax.

He had set enquiries in motion as instructed, but so far he had no result. So he waited, his thoughts going over the same questions: why had LeBeau gone out that night; why had he been attacked; and where was Jakob?

He looked up at the sound of someone coming down the ladder, and unconsciously he tensed. "How's he doing?" he asked.

Wilson shook his head slightly. "I'm having trouble keeping him in bed," he said dourly. "He can't sit up without getting woozy, but he wants to come down here. Is he always this pig-headed?"

"Yep. That's LeBeau, all right," replied Kinch. "Do you want me to talk to...uh-oh," he finished, glancing at the ladder, where a small, unsteady figure had just come into sight.

Wilson, with a muttered exclamation, went to the rescue. Kinch was right behind him, just in time to catch LeBeau as his grip on the ladder failed.

"I'm okay," he mumbled, trying ineffectively to gain his feet.

"I'll be the judge of that," snapped Wilson, as Kinch carried the patient to the cot he normally used to catch a few moments of rest on long nights down here.

The medic bent over LeBeau for a moment, checking his condition. "One more stunt like that, and I'll tell Klink you need a week in the hospital at Hammelburg," he said sternly.

LeBeau didn't reply. He had got his own way, and was satisfied for now. If he couldn't go with the others, at least he would know the moment they returned safely.

He shifted his feet away from the end of the cot, where the night bird had apparently decided to roost. It seemed quite docile at the moment, drowsing with its eyes half-closed. LeBeau, watching it sleepily, thought if only it could be this inoffensive all the time, he might get used to it.

It didn't appear concerned about Carter, or anyone else, at the moment.

Kinch went back to the radio desk, and after a final glance at LeBeau, Wilson followed him.

"You guys," he murmured. "It was just the same when Newkirk tore his Achilles tendon."

Kinch shrugged. "Guess it comes with the job," he said. "We don't get time off, Wilson." He glanced towards LeBeau, who appeared to be dozing off. "Seriously, is he going to be okay?"

"He's doing pretty well, but he's got something on his mind," replied Wilson. "Could be something to do with the head injury."

"He was worried about something before," observed Kinch. "Maybe..." He broke off, as Hogan, with Carter just behind, appeared in the dimness of the emergency tunnel.

"All okay?" he asked.

"No problems," said Hogan. He glanced at Wilson curiously, then past him to LeBeau. "What's he doing down here?"

Wilson shrugged, and shook his head. "Too stubborn for his own good. The minute I took my eyes off him..."

Although they spoke in hushed voices, LeBeau heard, and raised his head slightly. His eyes went from Hogan to Carter, and a smile crossed his face, before he settled down again.

"Let him stay for now," Wilson added. "He was pretty restless earlier."

"Colonel, should I start work now?" asked Carter. "I could be half finished by morning."

"Not tonight, Carter. You need to get some rest before you start playing with explosives."

Carter chuckled. "Are you kidding, buddy...I mean, sir? I could fix that stuff up in my sleep."

LeBeau stirred again, but a quick glance at the bird reassured him. It appeared to be asleep, its head tucked down, an intermittent little whistling sound issuing from its nostrils. _I didn't know birds snored_, thought LeBeau. But it wasn't exactly the usual sort of bird, after all.

If it was going to be a constant companion from now on, he hoped it wouldn't make that noise whenever it was sleeping.

"I don't think we want to test that, Carter," said Hogan. "Go on, get out of here. Leave the detonators," he added, as Carter started up the ladder.

"Oh, yeah. I forgot." Carter, embarrassed, dropped from the second rung, and disappeared in the direction of his workshop with the fresh supply.

"He'd have shoved them under his bunk, and left them there," Kinch explained to Wilson.

Hogan had gone to the plan of the target site, which had been mounted on the tunnel wall. "Magdalena said there was a weak spot in the perimeter security, right about here," he murmured, pointing to the drawing.

"She also said she could get us the password to get in the gate," said Kinch, studying the diagram. "Wouldn't it be easier?"

"Maybe. But that means letting her know when we're going in, and as things stand I prefer to keep her in the dark about that."

"You still think she had something to do with LeBeau?"

"I don't know. But until I do know, one way or the other, let's play it safe," said Hogan, with a little smile. "Of course, she could be lying about the weak spot, as well. But that's a chance we'll have to take."

He folded his arms. "I'd be happier if Newkirk was available," he went on. "We might need someone who's good with locks. I better give Klink another try."

He did so first thing the following morning, with no success. Klink, edgy about the supposed escape attempt and suspicious about the injury LeBeau had sustained, was not prepared to budge.

"Hogan, I've tried punishing the prisoners for escape attempts - they persist. I've tried being lenient. They still persist. It's less embarrassing if I go back to punishing them. Newkirk's sentence stands, and I hope the rest of the rabble will take it as an object lesson. And I'll have my most trusted man watching him day and night, just to be sure he doesn't get up to any mischief."

"But, gee, Colonel," Hogan protested. "Schultz gets awfully cranky if he doesn't get his sleep."

"Which is why I've assigned my _new_ most trusted man," replied Klink smugly. "I'm very pleased with Sergeant Kühn, he's proving most reliable. Unlike Schultz."

"And all I can say," commented Hogan later, after he had returned to the barracks in no pleasant temper, "is that it serves Kühn right."

He paced the floor of his quarters, from Kinch at the door to Carter at the window. LeBeau, back in the spare bunk, watched silently, occasionally glancing at the bird which was sitting on the window ledge behind Carter, occasionally nodding its misshapen head as if agreeing gravely with what was being said.

"Should we put the mission off?" suggested Carter diffidently. "In a few days, maybe..."

"Can't do it, Andrew," said Kinch. "The first bombing raid is scheduled for this week."

"And that radar has to be out of action before then," added Hogan grimly. "Carter, can you be ready by tomorrow night?"

"Sure thing, Colonel," replied Carter.

"Good. That's when we go in. Kinch, we'll need you along this time." Hogan glanced at LeBeau, who tilted his head back with a sigh. He had to accept that he was out of action for now; much harder to accept that it was his own fault, and even more difficult to acknowledge that he was indirectly responsible for Newkirk's unavailability as well.

He recognised Hogan's suspicions of Magdalena. Up to a point, he even understood, but he couldn't share them. There was no reason he could imagine why she should be a threat to himself, Carter or anyone else, and every reason in the world for her to work against her husband's killers. Her sincerity, her despair and anger, when she had spoken of him, was beyond any doubt. LeBeau was sure, as sure as he had ever been of anything, that she would be willing to do anything in her power in retribution.

The night bird made a soft noise, from somewhere deep in its throat, and looked at Carter with its head on one side. It was no longer the angry, intimidating apparition of the first few days; right now it seemed anxious and confused. Well, LeBeau knew what that was like. He wouldn't have thought it was possible, but he was starting to feel sympathy for the creature.

_Maybe all crazy people get fond of their delusions,_ he thought. It didn't make him feel any better.


	16. Chapter 16

No fog tonight; but even had there been a moon in the clear, ice-cold sky, its light would not have penetrated the heavy cover of the trees surrounding the radar installation. Hogan, glad that for once he had Kinch's precise directional sense to rely on, sent him ahead to find the ditch that ran along the fence line, and kept a close eye on Carter. This was partly because Carter possessed an almost uncanny ability to lose his way, and the darkness and density of the forest would only make it easier for him to do so. But there was more to it.

Hogan hadn't acknowledged it even to himself, but deep in the corners of his mind, he was replaying, over and over, the circumstances leading up to the attack on LeBeau. Everything seemed to lead to one conclusion. Something had made LeBeau anxious enough to disregard orders, and he'd almost got himself killed over it. And whatever it was, it had to do with Carter. If LeBeau hadn't followed him that night, and diverted whatever danger waited out there from Carter to himself, the outcome could have been much worse. Hogan had no doubt of that.

He couldn't accept the premonition hypothesis, but all the same, he kept Carter in sight.

Up ahead, Kinch stopped. Hogan froze on the spot, narrowing his eyes in an effort to see what was ahead. A moment later, Carter stumbled, and with a startled gasp disappeared from view.

Kinch sighed. "I think Carter just found the gully, Colonel."

"I'm okay." Carter's voice rose in a whisper from below. "Gosh, it's dark round here, huh?"

"How far down is it?" asked Hogan, going down on one knee at the edge of the drop.

"It's not so deep," replied Carter. A hand came out of the ditch, groped around, found Hogan's foot. "Is that..."

"That's mine, Carter. You sure you're okay?"

"Oh, sure, Colonel," replied Carter serenely. "I could use a hand getting out."

"Actually, Carter, we need to come down," Kinch put in.

"Oh. Okay. But you won't like it."

He was right, as Hogan discovered on scrambling down into the ditch and sinking into an inch-deep layer of glutinous mud.

"Oh, man," muttered Kinch. "You guys never told me about stuff like this."

"Gotta keep something to surprise you with, Kinch," said Hogan. But he wasn't happy, either.

Out of necessity, their progress became slower, and fifteen minutes of hard slog ensued before a glimmer of light overhead indicated they were close to their destination.

With a boost from Kinch, Hogan gained the surface above the gully. The fence surrounding the target lay about four feet away, masked by a barricade of low shrubbery. Crawling forward, Hogan forced his way through the spiky branches until he reached the barbed wire.

Carter was just behind him, and Kinch was scrambling up the side of the gully with an agility that made Hogan regret even more having to leave him behind so often.

A rapid survey of the site told him all he needed to know. The main building housing both the radar detection equipment and the computer installation lay some distance away, which was a cause for concern; however, there were several outbuildings which would provide cover as they crossed the open ground in between.

This part of the perimeter lay in darkness. Obviously those in charge didn't anticipate an approach from this side; all their resources seemed to be focused on the more accessible main entrance. But as Hogan prepared to cut the wire, he stopped, then shuffled back slightly, as a bored-looking sentry came into sight, pacing along the inside of the fence.

He waited till the man was almost out of sight before proceeding. A couple of minutes brought the three of them inside. From there, a series of short dashes, from the shadow of one building to the next, brought them to their goal.

"Either of you know how Newkirk does this?" asked Hogan, crouching to examine the padlock which secured the door.

"No, but I've got a spare stick of dynamite, if you want me to..." Carter broke off, sensing Hogan's exasperation. "Guess that'd be a bit noisy, wouldn't it?"

"Just a little bit, Carter." Hogan gave the lock an experimental tug. Although the padlock itself seemed discouragingly strong and well-made, the bolt which it secured in place was definitely working loose from its moorings. He gave it another jerk, and the whole assemblage moved, but not quite enough, so he moved back and nodded to Kinch.

"See if you can get it," he murmured.

Kinch grasped the padlock firmly, braced himself and gave a muscle-wrenching yank. The first attempt was unsuccessful; he gripped the lock again, and gave it another go, and it gave so suddenly that he went over backwards.

He was up again quickly, but the look on his face expressed clearly what he was not prepared to say out loud: _Remind me again why I hate being left behind.. _

Inside, a long corridor stretched ahead into darkness. Hogan paused briefly, consulting the layout he'd memorised.

"Okay, Carter," he murmured. "The equipment is behind that door there. You and Kinch get in and start work. I'll head to the basement to get a look at this computer set-up. Give me fifteen minutes to get the photos."

"Shouldn't Kinch go with you?" whispered Carter. "I got this. You might need some help down there."

"He's right, Colonel," added Kinch. "You'll need to do some dismantling to get a look at the new relay system. It might be a two-man job."

Hogan took a few seconds to consider the matter. He hated to admit it, but Kinch was right. Yet it meant leaving Carter to set the charges on his own, and at some almost subconscious level Hogan didn't want to do that.

_Whatever LeBeau's got, it must be catching,_ he thought.

The mission had to come first. Carter was perfectly capable of setting the charges without help. He would be fine.

"All right," said Hogan. "But be careful, Carter. Watch your back."

He nodded to Kinch, and they disappeared into the darkness, while Carter eased open the door to the equipment room and slipped inside.

Not one of them had realised it, but they weren't alone.

* * *

LeBeau awoke with a start, escaping another of the dark, chaotic dreams which had persistently troubled him since his emergence from unconsciousness. For a few seconds he stared at the tunnel roof, while he got his bearings back; then he pushed himself up to a sitting position.

He had argued Hogan into letting him monitor the radio. The colonel had only given way after consulting Wilson.

"He's coming along okay now," the medic had admitted. "But he's way too nervy to sleep properly. He's better off having something to do."

And on that basis, and the assumption that there would probably be no incoming messages anyway. Hogan had agreed.

The assumption had been wrong. A soft, insistent buzzing noise was coming from the radio. The night bird, perched on the edge of the desk, was regarding the apparatus with deep avian mistrust, occasionally stretching its neck forward to peck at the receiver, quite ineffectively.

LeBeau got up from the cot and stumbled over. He waved the bird aside with no particular gentleness, and picked up the headphone.

The transmission appeared to be from Düsseldorf, and he'd missed a large part of the message, so he couldn't make much sense of it. He requested a repeat, and waited, while the night bird sat at his elbow, mumbling to itself.

"I suppose you think you're being helpful," remarked LeBeau, with a sideways glance. "You're not. All you've done is give me a headache." The bird cocked one white eye at him, and uttered a low-pitched crooning sound. It wasn't happy. Well, neither was LeBeau.

The radio came back to life, eliciting a protesting squeak from the night bird. LeBeau ignored it, turning his attention to the incoming message. For a couple of minutes he listened, writing down the information as it flowed through. After it had finished, he sat for several seconds, staring at the page in bewilderment.

_How could I have got it so wrong?_ he thought dazedly. Somewhere behind the shock, he knew that there was a whole new level of grief and pain awaiting him, but he refused to look at it. Time enough for that later. Right now he had an emergency to deal with.

He was beginning to understand, as he took up this new point of view; the whole situation, which had been so dark and incomprehensible, was now chillingly clear. The danger was something he could never have predicted, and it was greater than ever.

Still, as long as the night bird remained calm...

And then the bird, with a sudden, piercing shriek of alarm, jumped as if it had just been bitten, and fell off the edge of the table.

It regained its feet, and gave another screech. LeBeau covered his ears, which had no effect at all. "_Ça va_! I can hear you. Stop it!" he shouted. But even if the creature had understood, it was too agitated to listen.

LeBeau tried to block it out, as he turned his thoughts to the mission. He didn't need any supernatural intercession to tell him there was trouble; the message from Düsseldorf had been sufficient for that. He would have to go after them.

He jumped to his feet. The sudden movement made his head spin, and he grabbed the edge of the table. The bird immediately scuttled across the floor and snapped at his ankle, then leaped out of the way as he tried to kick it. That upset his balance even further, and he had to close his eyes.

For several seconds, he remained still, breathing deeply. He wasn't up to this; he was going to need help, and there was only one man left in camp he could rely on to help out without demanding a full explanation. And getting that man wouldn't be easy.

Somehow, under Sergeant Kühn's nose, he was going to have to break Newkirk out of the cooler.


	17. Chapter 17

It was never pleasant spending time in the cooler. Winter and summer, a miserable damp chill rose from the concrete floor; the beds had been designed to ensure none of the inmates wasted any time sleeping; and according to rumour, the bugs were prepared to arm-wrestle unwary prisoners and take away their food by force. And just now, on top of everything else, Sergeant Kühn, that paragon of efficiency and vigilance, was snoring like an adenoidal camel.

Newkirk, trying to find a comfortable position, couldn't decide what was the worst feature of the mattress: the uneven, slightly viscous texture of the stuffing, the scattering therein of lumps the size and consistency of cricket balls, or the smell. There was nothing else in the world, he thought, that smelled quite like those mattresses.

Kühn gave a sudden snort, followed by a choking wheeze. He did that every so often, sometimes waking himself up. Newkirk sat up and glared at him through the bars. Right now, there was nobody in the world he hated more than that Kraut.

_Another twenty-five nights of this. I'll go mad. I'll go completely round the bend._

He pushed himself up from the mattress and prepared to wake his gaoler and give him a proper serve. But before he could speak, out of the corner of his eye he registered a movement in the side wall, which resolved into the opening of the hidden tunnel entrance; and when he saw LeBeau peering out, his heart dropped as if brought down by anti-aircraft fire.

He hadn't seen LeBeau since the incident in the woods. Schultz had brought encouraging reports of the patient's progress, but Newkirk knew Schultz well enough to take that intelligence with a grain of salt. The last person Hogan would send to him with a message right now was LeBeau. But still, here he was, pale and wide-eyed, clearly still unwell.

He looked at Newkirk, and nodded in Kühn's direction, then folded his hands and laid his head on them, miming sleep. Newkirk shrugged, and shook his head slightly. Kühn couldn't be relied upon for anything, not even to sleep through the night.

With a grimace of exasperation, LeBeau crept back to the tunnel. He returned carrying a tray with a sandwich and a mug of beer, which he placed carefully on the table next to the sleeping guard. Then he took a small box out of his pocket, extracted a tiny pill and dropped it into the mug.

Newkirk knew that little box. Kühn would get a good night's sleep, all right.

LeBeau closed the tunnel entrance and slipped round the corner into the side corridor. It was up to Newkirk to move things forward, and he didn't need to think too hard about it.

"Oi! Sleeping Beauty!" he said, banging his hand against the bars. "Is that a solo number, or can anyone join in?"

Kühn woke with a start. "_Was ist..._?" He blinked, and peered at Newkirk. "What are you shouting about, _Engländer_?"

"Oh, sorry. Did I wake you up?" Newkirk put his hands in his pockets, trying to suppress a breakout grin. "Thought you must be having a nightmare, the noise you were making. Shame about your beauty sleep. You need it more than most."

"Always the funny man, _nicht wahr_?" muttered Kühn. "You won't have so many jokes left by the time you get out of that cell." He yawned, and settled back in his chair again.

"Listen, mate, before you drop off again," said Newkirk quickly, "if you don't want your supper, I could use a bite."

Kühn stared at him blearily, then looked down at the table. "Where did this come from?" he asked, a frown developing across his brow.

"Corporal Langenscheidt brought it in while you were - ahem - otherwise engaged, that is to say, sleeping like the dead." Newkirk put his head on one side. "And if you don't fancy it - well, waste not, want not, as my old mum used to say."

He put on his best wheedling smile, and it had just the effect he'd counted on. Kühn regarded him narrowly for a second, then picked up the sandwich and made short work of it. The beer went the same way; and the added ingredient had a very rapid effect. He was out like a light within two minutes.

LeBeau crept from his hiding place, and leaned over the guard, then gave him a gentle shove, and Kühn flopped over to one side.

"Dead to the world," observed Newkirk in a tone of approval. "LeBeau..."

LeBeau interrupted him without ceremony. "Not now, Newkirk. There's trouble, we have to go to Bernsdorf at once."

He lifted the bunch of keys from Kühn's belt, and unlocked the cell door.

"What's up?" asked Newkirk, going straight to the tunnel entrance.

"I'll tell you on the way. Karl will have a car waiting for us at the Weizenfeld bridge." LeBeau ducked into the tunnel, avoiding any further questions, and Newkirk, with an exasperated mutter, went after him.

He caught up halfway to the turn-off for the emergency tunnel. "Hold up, LeBeau," he said, grasping LeBeau's elbow and bringing him to a stop. LeBeau, blinking in the dim lamplight, stared at him, then gave his head an impatient shake, and looked off to the side.

"Not now," he whispered again, but this time Newkirk had the odd impression he was speaking to someone else. Then LeBeau, with another restless movement, pulled his arm away. "Please, Newkirk. There isn't time."

He set off again, doggedly resolute, and Newkirk had no choice but to follow. But he was starting to feel thoroughly alarmed about LeBeau's condition. He didn't bother asking where the others were; it went without saying, the Bernsdorf job was on for tonight. Clearly something had gone wrong, and they needed help; and the state LeBeau was in, he wasn't going to be much use.

"So Karl's coming along, is he?" Newkirk tried again, as they reached the ladder leading to the exit in the woods

"Karl is not coming along. He's just bringing us a car," said LeBeau, and started the ascent. Newkirk watched with anxiety.

"You'll never get up there, LeBeau," he muttered. But he knew better. LeBeau had turned stubborn, he'd keep going now until he dropped.

They didn't speak again till they reached the bridge. Karl was there as arranged, his face lined with worry.

"We found him," he said tersely. "You were right, LeBeau. This is a disaster."

"Found who?" demanded Newkirk.

"Jakob. LeBeau told me..."

"No, Karl. I'll explain to Newkirk on the way." LeBeau was not prepared to waste a minute.

"You should let me come with you," Karl persisted.

"We'll deal with it," said LeBeau firmly. "Newkirk..."

There was desperation in the look he turned to his friend, and Newkirk responded instantly. "It's all right, Karl. We can manage."

Once he was behind the wheel, and they were underway, he turned a severe gaze on LeBeau.

"Right, Louis," he said seriously, "Let's have it."

"I made a mistake," murmured LeBeau, after a long silence. "I..." His voice trailed off, and he put one hand over his ear for a moment. "I was afraid. There was - You won't believe me," he finished abruptly.

"Never doubted you before, LeBeau," Newkirk replied. He spoke in a neutral tone, to cover his anxiety. Then, as LeBeau didn't speak, he went on. "You went out after Carter. You were worried about him."

"About Carter, _oui_." LeBeau hesitated, as if preparing to take a plunge into ice-cold water. "Newkirk, there are things that some people don't believe. But they exist, all the same. I had warning that something was going to happen, something bad."

"What kind of warning?" Newkirk kept his eyes on the road.

LeBeau bit his lip, considering the best way to answer that. "Call it an omen."

"About Carter?"

"There was a reason I thought it was Carter."

Newkirk had a healthy vein of scepticism running through his character, and it was kicking in now. He didn't believe in omens, and his instinct was to reject the whole idea. But then again, this was LeBeau, his comrade in arms, practically his best mate; and for that reason, he suppressed his disbelief, and tried to follow where LeBeau was going with this.

"That's why you went out after him that night."

LeBeau nodded. "I was sure something would happen, some time."

"But you said just now you made a mistake. What was that? You mean it wasn't Carter, or...?"

"Oh, yes, it's Carter," said LeBeau quietly. And so certain was his tone, and so desolate, that Newkirk was half-convinced in spite of himself.

After a moment LeBeau went on. "I didn't realise, until our people in Düsseldorf got in touch this evening. Kinch was making enquiries, they had some answers for him. Now I know...How could I make a mistake like that?" The words broke out in despair.

"What? What did you do?" Newkirk spoke sharply.

LeBeau gave a sigh, and shook his head. "I told her about it. I told Magdalena."

"Is she working for them?" asked Newkirk, after a moment of stunned silence.

"She's working for herself." LeBeau spoke so softly that Newkirk hardly heard him.

"But...I don't get it. What did Düsseldorf tell you? What's she got against Carter?"

It was too dark to see LeBeau's face, but the weariness and grief in his voice were evident as he replied.

"It was Carter who made the bomb that killed her husband."


	18. Chapter 18

"He was in the SS." As the car sped along the dark empty road, LeBeau went on with the story, in a low, tired voice. "But he got himself assigned to the Gestapo. You remember Colonel Feldkamp? Magdalena's husband was his driver."

"I remember," replied Newkirk. His expression had hardened. "We gave Feldkamp a going-away present when he left Stalag 13. Blew up his staff car."

"With him and two of his men in it. Including his driver." LeBeau gazed out of the window. "She told me how it was for her, after it happened. She told me he was everything to her. But she never let it slip that we were responsible, not once. She's clever."

"It was her gave you that crack on the head, then?" Newkirk was following the trail backwards in his mind. It was conceivable; in spite of her girlish air, Magdalena was quite tough, and taller than LeBeau. "Why didn't she finish with Carter while she had the chance?"

"I don't know. Maybe she lost her nerve. She must have already killed Jakob by that time." LeBeau spoke very quietly. Until the message from Düsseldorf had made the whole story clear, he hadn't recognised how strong his feelings were for Magdalena. He still wasn't sure exactly how deep this new wound had cut; right now, he knew he didn't have the time to examine it, nor did he want to.

"So Jakob's dead." Newkirk shook his head, and whistled. "Poor blighter, he didn't deserve that."

"She went to see him, after I met with her in town. She probably killed him then, and used his radio to set up the meeting with Carter. When she got to the bridge, and saw I was there..." LeBeau broke off abruptly. After a pause, he continued. "I told Karl he'd probably find Jakob somewhere in his house - in the cellar, maybe, or...anyway, they've found him."

"And she was the one shooting at Carter in the woods, the time before," Newkirk went on. "That SS patrol she said she saw..."

"There never was a patrol. She made it up to cover her tracks, in case it went wrong."

"You know, the Colonel never liked that story," observed Newkirk.

"No. He's had doubts about her for some time. He wouldn't have her involved tonight, he wouldn't even let her know. I couldn't understand why, until Düsseldorf called."

"They could have saved us some trouble if they'd found out about all this a bit sooner."

"That was Karl's job," replied LeBeau bitterly. "He let us down - all of us, his people as well."

There was silence for a while, before Newkirk spoke again. "Okay, LeBeau. I'll go along with it, as far as it goes. But why are you getting so worked up about it now? You said Magdalena's not involved tonight. So it should be just a routine assignment, right? Why the big panic?"

LeBeau hesitated, and looked at him, then turned away. "I can't explain it, Newkirk. Can you not just trust me?"

"Absolutely. With my life, Louis." The words came out without so much as a second's delay. Then, after a brief pause, Newkirk added, "It'd be nice to know what's waiting for us out there, but if you can't say any more, that's all there is to it."

LeBeau looked down at his hands, clasped together loosely in his lap. "Newkirk," he began, almost inaudibly; stopped, looked out of the window for a moment, then started again. "Newkirk, you will think I'm crazy. But - "

He took a deep breath, and for the first time in years, he told someone about the night bird.

A long silence ensued. He didn't dare look at Newkirk, afraid he'd find the same expression of incredulous scorn he'd met so often after Nina's suicide.

"Well, I'll be buggered," murmured Newkirk after a while.

LeBeau exhaled sharply, and closed his eyes. "I knew you wouldn't believe it," he said. "It's okay, Newkirk. Nobody ever does. That's why..."

"Just give me a minute, LeBeau. Don't rush me. It's a lot to take in, you know." Newkirk's eyes were still on the road. He was frowning slightly. "So how long has this been going on? Since you were a kid, right?"

"Since I was six or seven. I had a sister. She drowned. But I don't remember much about that. This is the fourth time. And someone always dies. Always." LeBeau could scarcely believe that Newkirk was taking it seriously.

"And this thing, this bird's still hanging round?" Newkirk glanced at him. "It's not here now, is it?"

LeBeau uttered a short laugh. "It hasn't left me since I woke up." He jerked his head towards the back seat. "It's quiet right now, but it went half crazy just after the message came in."

"What, you're telling me it's sitting up behind us this minute?" Newkirk turned his head briefly. "There's nothing there, LeBeau."

"It's there. You just don't see it. Nobody sees it but me." LeBeau's eyebrows drew in. "Carter felt it once, but he didn't know what it was. It bit him on the leg."

"I don't know as I'd blame it," said Newkirk dryly. After a moment's thought, he went on, "So you think that it - that bird thing - thinks something's up?"

LeBeau didn't answer him. The last time the night bird had gone into a similar frenzy had been in Paris, on the night Nina died, and that time it had been too late. This time had to be different. If it wasn't, he didn't think he would be able to bear it.

* * *

As far as Hogan knew, things were going well. He and Kinch had made it to the basement, and gained entry to the room housing the computer equipment, without much difficulty. He didn't want to admit it, but it made him nervous. It was too easy; something had to go wrong.

The basement room was bigger than he had expected, but almost the whole space was taken up by rows of cabinets, which were filled with what, to his eyes, looked like a senseless jumble of switches and wiring.

"Make any sense to you, Kinch?" he asked, after they'd manhandled the cover off one of the units.

"Well, it's not what I'm used to, but it does have a kind of structure to it," replied Kinch.

"Seems to me there's got to be an easier way to do sums," Hogan went on.

"There is. It's called pencil and paper." Kinch grinned at him. "When these things get small enough to carry round like a notebook, I'll start taking them seriously. How's the lighting?"

"It'll have to be good enough." Hogan pulled the camera from his pocket. "I don't suppose you have a clue what our guys in England want the photos to show them? No, didn't think so. Guess we'd better just snap everything we can."

They worked quickly, knowing they didn't have much time, and had almost done when Kinch suddenly stopped in his tracks. "Did you hear something?" he whispered.

Hogan cocked his head slightly, listening. "Check the door," he said, and turned back to finish the job.

A few seconds later, he heard Kinch call him, in a low, urgent voice. He put the camera back in his pocket as he went to the door.

"It's locked," said Kinch.

"Can't be." Hogan tried the door, gently at first, then with vigour. Neither method worked.

"Oh, boy, this isn't good," he murmured. "Carter's up there on his own."

"Yeah. Setting explosives, which we're going to be underneath when they go off." Kinch was looking up towards the ceiling. "Colonel, I think right now we're in a lot more trouble than he is."

Hogan didn't reply. But somehow, he had a hunch Carter was more at risk than Kinch realised; and it looked like there was nothing they could do about it.

* * *

Note: Colonel Feldkamp came to an unpleasant end in _The Battle of Stalag 13_.


	19. Chapter 19

Carter, sweetly oblivious to the situation directly below, had just about finished his preparations. He was humming under his breath, as he made the final checks, but if he'd been asked what the tune was, he'd have been unable to answer.

Everything looked okay. He could set the timer as soon as Hogan and Kinch got back.

He turned his head at the sound of footsteps in the passage, then moved behind the door. It was probably the Colonel, but you couldn't be too careful; Carter kept back until he saw who it was, then he relaxed.

"I didn't know you were here, ma'am," he said.

Magdalena spun round. "You are still here? Good." She spoke very quickly. "General Langbein decided to make a surprise inspection. He's here now. I've just spoken to Colonel Hogan. He can't get back up here because the general's guards are patrolling the corridor, so he's going out by the door at the other end of the building. He said you were to start the timer, and then meet him back at the fence."

She gazed up at him, her eyes wide, her whole body tense. It never occurred to Carter to doubt her. He closed the door, in case they were heard. "Well, I guess that's okay," he murmured. "What about you?"

"I'm to go back to the car. It's parked near the gate. That's far enough away, isn't it?"

"Should be. But go straight there. Once I set the timer, it can't be switched off. See, that way, even if the Krauts find it before it goes off, they can't do anything about it. We had some problems with that a couple of times." Carter glanced up at her as he activated the timer. "Is it clear out there now?"

Magdalena opened the door a crack. "All clear."

Together they crept back to the main door. Outside, everything was quiet. Carter slipped out cautiously, then nodded to Magdalena.

"Go on. And you take care, won't you?" he whispered.

"I will," she replied, with a tight little smile, and moved off. Carter watched her anxiously. She was such a nice girl; he didn't like her being involved in a dangerous mission like this one. But she seemed to know what she was doing. He took another quick look around, then set off towards the fence.

He half-expected Hogan and Kinch to be there already, but they hadn't got there yet. It worried him; if they'd got caught, it wasn't going to be easy getting them out without backup. He almost wished they'd brought LeBeau, even if he wasn't feeling so good right now.

He waited for a few minutes, checking his watch repeatedly, getting more restless and uneasy each time. This wasn't good. They should be in sight by now. Without realising it, he moved a few steps away from the fence, squinting in the direction of the main building. The moon had risen since they got here, so if there was anyone coming, he'd see them alright.

Still no sign of anyone. He was going to have to go find them. He started back across the compound.

"_Halt_!"

The command came from further along the fence line, and Carter stopped dead. Then he turned slowly, raising his hands.

"Oh, boy!" he said under his breath.

The guard was alone, but one look at the semi-automatic rifle he held was enough to tell Carter he had no hope of tackling the guy. He was only young, and too nervous to be trusted; and he appeared just as perturbed at finding a saboteur as the saboteur felt about being caught.

He gestured with the rifle. "That way. _Schnell_."

"Okay, Fritz - I mean, pal - I mean - "

"No talking," snapped the guard, his voice pitched just a little too high. "Just march."

This guy was really scared. And a scared Kraut was a trigger-happy Kraut. It was probably smarter not to argue. Carter marched.

He tried not to look over his shoulder to see if there was any sign of Hogan and Kinch; he didn't want to tip off the guard. But as they neared the corner of the fence line, he risked a quick glance backwards. So he had a perfect view of the guard's face when the man received a bullet in the throat.

Carter responded by pure reflex, dropping to a crouch. He gazed around, wide-eyed, but couldn't see where the shot had come from.

The guard was still alive, his attempts to keep breathing so laboured, and so agonisingly noisy, that Carter felt his own throat closing in sympathy. He crawled over to the man's side. As he reached him, the guard opened his eyes and looked at him. He couldn't be much older than twenty, just the age of Carter's kid brother; and had blue eyes, just like...

"Take it easy, buddy," said Carter softly. He knew enough about bullet wounds to realise there was nothing he could do. This guy only had a couple of minutes.

They were soldiers, and soldiers died. That was just the way it went, it was a consequence of war. It was part of Carter's job; but that didn't mean he couldn't feel sorry for an individual, even one on the other side, who was facing that moment. He'd never got that hardened.

Without thinking, he put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "You'll be okay," he murmured. "You'll be okay real soon."

The young German stared back at him, and took another choking breath; then his eyes moved past Carter to someone behind him. Carter half-turned, a second too late, and something hit him on the side of the head, just hard enough to send him out.

* * *

Newkirk had heard the shot, as he ploughed through the muddy ditch towards the fence. He couldn't tell where it came from, but it sent a cold wave of fear through him.

LeBeau was finding the going so hard that he was scarcely aware of anything; he struggled on in Newkirk's wake, knowing only that he must keep up. And further ahead, the night bird dodged from shadow to shadow.

It took only a couple of minutes longer to reach the entry point. Newkirk went up the bank first, and reached down to help LeBeau, who looked as if he had almost reached his limit.

"I'm beginning to think I should have left you behind," said Newkirk tersely.

"You can't do without me." LeBeau's voice was hoarse with exhaustion. "Me and my friend over there."

Newkirk flicked a glance over his shoulder. This whole invisible bird business was starting to get on his nerves. "Fine. If you say so. Well, what's Polly Parrot want us to do now?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," said LeBeau. He was watching the night bird, every sense and every nerve stretched almost to breaking point as he tried to understand. The creature was to all appearances as uncertain as he was; it had started off along the fence, then stopped, turning its head towards the collection of buildings in the middle of the compound. It shook its head, gabbling distractedly, then set off with a hop towards the buildings.

"That way," murmured LeBeau. "Go, Newkirk."

"That's where the radar is," said Newkirk, as he started moving.

LeBeau didn't reply, just stumbled wearily along behind him.

As the others had done, some time before, they kept to the shelter of the outbuildings. And just as Hogan had done, Newkirk began to feel uneasy.

"I don't see much in the way of security, do you?" he murmured, as they reached the main building.

LeBeau shook his head. "Keep going."

The night bird continued on ahead, waddling into the building and advancing along the inner corridor. LeBeau moved in front of Newkirk, trying to keep it in sight. At the far end, the creature turned off.

"Mind the stairs," said Newkirk sharply, as LeBeau, still in pursuit of the night bird, teetered briefly. He flung a hand back, and grabbed Newkirk's arm to steady himself.

"Down there," he whispered.

"You sure that bird's not just messing us about?" But Newkirk was already descending.

* * *

In the room below, Hogan was growing increasingly worried.

"There's definitely no other way out," Kinch reported, returning from a circuit of the entire basement room. "Any luck?"

Hogan, attempting to force the lock with a screwdriver he'd found lying around, grunted. "Newkirk makes it look so easy." He let the screwdriver fall.

"Is there any chance we could break it down?"

"Steel reinforced, Kinch. They had to get that one thing right." Hogan, in frustration, slammed his hand against the door surface.

The sound echoed around them, and they both fell quiet, listening to the resonation. Then Hogan lifted his head.

"Did you just hear...?

He met Kinch's eyes. For several seconds neither of them uttered a sound. Kinch scarcely even breathed. And in the silence, barely audible through the thickness of the door, but real nonetheless, the most beautiful sound either of them had ever heard came to them: a voice, the East London accent rather broader than usual.

"Colonel Hogan? Are you in there?"


	20. Chapter 20

"Newkirk!"

The answer to Newkirk's call came promptly, though indistinctly, and LeBeau's legs almost gave way in relief. He leaned against the wall, blinking hard to get his eyes back into focus.

"The door's locked," Hogan continued, his voice muffled by the thickness of the door. "Can you...?"

"Already on it, sir," Newkirk called back, as he started in with the picklock.

Hogan's voice was heard again, faint and incomprehensible.

"Didn't catch that, Colonel," said Newkirk.

LeBeau was looking at the night bird. It had retreated a few steps, bobbing its head up and down in agitation. Something was still wrong.

"Can you be quick, Newkirk?" whispered LeBeau.

Newkirk didn't stop working. "I can rush the job, or I can get it right," he replied irritably. The bird hissed at him, and hopped a little further back towards the stairs, where it stopped, peering at LeBeau with one eye, then turning its head to fix him with the other. As he didn't respond, it gave a shrill whistle, and darted towards his ankles; and LeBeau shuffled back, almost losing his balance.

"Stop it," he muttered.

"What's up, LeBeau?" said Newkirk distractedly over his shoulder. LeBeau, his attention on the antics of the night bird, didn't answer. Newkirk was too absorbed to notice.

"You'll have to speak up, Colonel," he said, at a further murmuring from the other side. "Or wait till I get this door open."

A second later Hogan spoke once more, and LeBeau started to feel ill as the meaning reached him:

"Is Carter with you?"

Newkirk's hands became still for a couple of seconds. "Haven't seen him, Colonel," he replied. "I thought he'd be with you."

He gave his head a shake to clear the momentary distraction, knowing he couldn't afford to be sidetracked now. Then he got back to work; and the night bird looked up at LeBeau, and uttered a soft, almost human cry, before it set off down the passage again. LeBeau reached out towards Newkirk's shoulder, but his hand stopped just short.

Carter wasn't here. The creature had brought LeBeau here, and by doing so had brought Newkirk, but not on Carter's account. Apparently it was expanding its activities. So Newkirk's job was here; LeBeau's was somewhere else.

No point in bothering Newkirk now; he had enough to deal with. LeBeau moved silently away in the direction of the stairs, following the night bird.

The lock was proving more challenging than Newkirk had expected. He muttered a few Chaucerian adjectives, as the picklock slipped for the third time. "Okay, give me some quiet, LeBeau," he said. Then he bent his head to the door again.

"That's better," he murmured. "Just a couple more minutes..."

_Did Carter already set the timer?_

The thought was there, at the back of his mind. There was no way of knowing whether he had, or how soon the place would go up. Only Carter could answer that, and Carter wasn't here.

"I don't suppose that parrot of yours could give us a bit more information, LeBeau?" muttered Newkirk. "Like, when are Carter's bombs going off?"

LeBeau still didn't answer.

A tiny movement within the lock sent an almost imperceptible vibration to Newkirk's fingertips, just as a soft click reached his ears. He breathed out in relief. "That's got it," he said, and opened the door.

"Good work, Newkirk," said Hogan. "I don't know how you got here, but your timing was perfect."

"Easy, sir. Me and LeBeau just..." Newkirk turned his head, and his voice trailed off.

"LeBeau?"

"He was here a moment ago." Newkirk scanned the corridor, the air of self-satisfaction evaporating as he realised why LeBeau hadn't spoken for the last couple of minutes. "He must have gone to look for Carter."

"Colonel, we better get out of here, fast," Kinch put in. "Those bombs could go off any minute."

Hogan nodded. "Get moving. And watch out for guards."

"There weren't any when we got here," said Newkirk as they headed for the stairs.

"No, we didn't see any, either. Something's going on," said Hogan.

"You want to ask Magdalena about it." Newkirk's voice dropped to a growl. "We found out something she didn't bother telling us. Turns out her husband was SS."

Hogan swore under his breath.

"Oh, it gets better," added Newkirk, as they reached the stairs. "He was killed by one of Carter's bombs. LeBeau thinks she's got it in for him."

He didn't say any more, hoping the Colonel wouldn't question him too closely. If Hogan worked out that LeBeau was taking advice from poultry - invisible poultry, at that - and that Newkirk had let himself get suckered by it as well, there was going to be a very interesting debriefing when they got back to camp.

Hogan had other worries. The scant outline had given him just enough information to shift his disquiet over Carter into overdrive. He still didn't understand the whole story, but clearly LeBeau had known something, and that explained a lot.

"Why didn't LeBeau come to me?" he asked, as they reached the ground floor. But Newkirk decided it was prudent to treat the question as rhetorical. That was one conversation he'd rather engage in later. Or preferably, never.

The quickest exit was by the door at this end of the building. But the radar room was at the far end.

"You two go out that way," said Hogan. "I'll check if Carter's still here."

Kinch and Newkirk exchanged glances.

"With respect, Colonel," said Kinch, "no way."

"That was an order, Kinch."

"Yes, sir. We know it was," replied Newkirk. "And assuming we're not all blown to bits in the next three minutes, I'll be happy to face a disciplinary in due course."

"Me, too," added Kinch.

Hogan glared from one to the other. "I can see we'll be needing a little chat about obeying orders, when we get the time. Have it your way."

With no further delay they ran along the corridor to the radar room. Kinch got there first, and put his hand on the doorknob, glancing at Hogan for permission. Hogan drew his pistol, and nodded.

The precaution wasn't needed. Nobody was in there.

Newkirk took a quick glance at the timer wired to the explosives. "Two minutes, Colonel. We better shift ourselves."

Without another word, all three men took to their heels. But Newkirk looked back, as they headed for the outer door.

_I hope you're well out of this, Louis_, he thought. _You and that bleedin' night bird of yours._

* * *

Carter came round slowly, and with great reluctance. Firstly because his head was aching something fierce. _If this is what LeBeau felt like, no wonder he stayed out so long_, he thought vaguely.

Secondly, because beneath the pain was a horrible feeling that whatever was going on in the outside world, he wasn't going to like it.

He could feel that he was lying on his left side, with the prickle of gravel against his face. His right arm was raised, secured by a band of cold metal around the wrist. It was extremely uncomfortable.

"Sergeant Carter? Wake up. Please, wake up."

The voice, soft and agitated, was familiar, though not in an everyday sense. Carter felt sure he should respond to it. It was important, and anyway, you couldn't disregard a request from a lady. He made an effort, and opened his eyes.

Magdalena was kneeling beside him, leaning slightly forward. Her hair had come loose and fallen over her shoulder; her face was flushed as if with exertion, and her eyes were bright in the moonlight. She was breathing very fast.

"What happened?" Carter mumbled, pushing himself up from the ground to a sitting position. The movement elicited a brief radiating burst of pain in the side of his head. He screwed his eyes shut, with an muttered "Ow!"

He tried to rub his eyes, but whatever was around his right wrist was keeping his arm from moving very far.

"Sergeant Carter - Andrew, listen to me." That got his attention. She'd never addressed him by his first name before; only with LeBeau was she on those terms. He squinted at her, then blinked.

"Sorry, ma'am," he murmured. He gave his arm another tug, then turned to see what the problem was. "What...what's going on?" His head began to clear, as he realised the ring of metal around his wrist was one half of a pair of handcuffs. The other end was secured to one of the posts supporting the wire of the fence line.

He looked around, suddenly alert. A couple of feet to his left, the German guard lay completely still and permanently silent. Apart from him there was nobody else in sight, only Magdalena. Carter looked at her again, his forehead wrinkling as he tried to make sense of the situation.

"Where's Colonel Hogan?" he asked.

"Still in the basement under the radar room," Magdalena replied. Her voice trembled slightly. "They can't get out. The door is locked."

"But..." Carter started to speak, broke off, then looked at his watch. "But..."

"They can't get out," said Magdalena again.

"I've got to get out of this. Where's the key?" Carter tugged at the cuffs again, desperately impatient.

"There isn't time. You'd never get there."

"I've got to try. Please, help me find the key." Carter's voice took on a note of panic; he clutched Magdalena's arm with his free hand.

She shook herself loose. "I can't help you. It's too late."

He knew it; the timer inside his head which always kicked in at these times was already ticking off the remaining seconds. "Please..." he whispered.

He closed his eyes, but couldn't cover his ears, and a horrible, sickening spasm went through him as the sound of the explosion reached him.

His mental timer stopped, and apart from the dull roar of the fire created by the blast, there was silence. For how long, he didn't know.

"Andrew." Magdalena's voice. "Look at me."

She put her hand on his cheek, turning his face towards her. He didn't resist, but he didn't open his eyes. Once he opened his eyes, he would know for sure that this was real. He didn't want to open his eyes ever again.

"Please, Andrew." Something in her voice demanded a reply. It sounded like she needed him. He had to respond, whether he wanted to or not.

She was still gazing at him, with an expression he'd never seen before, not on anyone. There was grief there, but something else, too, something Carter wasn't equipped to understand. Her fingers were still lying against his cheekbone, gentle and tender as a lover's caress.

For several seconds, she just stared, as if trying to memorise how he looked. Then a sweet, radiant smile broke across her face, as she spoke again:

"Now you know how it feels."


	21. Chapter 21

For several seconds Carter didn't respond, as his brain, shocked almost into paralysis, tried to grasp what Magdalena had just said. She remained still, her hand resting gently against his face, watching his reaction.

Then she moved, fast, as he hurled himself at her, in a blind, instinctive fury such as he'd never felt before. She just made it out of his reach; he was brought up short, with an agonising wrenching of his shoulder, as he got to the limit defined by the cuff around his wrist. He dropped to the ground, the breath driven from his body by a cold wave of pain. Magdalena remained where she was, standing very straight and still. She had a gun - Carter's own gun, which looked enormous in her pretty little hand. A second pistol was tucked into her waistband.

Carter stared at her in silence, as he tried to adjust his mental image of her to fit this new situation. He knew that below his conscious level of thought, an ocean of disbelief and anguish was swelling like spring tide, but right now he couldn't take the time to deal with it. That was for later, if he lived long enough.

"I was only going to kill you, you know." It was as if she was following the same trail of understanding as he was, and had reached the same milestone.

"Why didn't you?" His throat was almost too dry for the words to escape.

"Louis," she replied simply. "I was there, in the woods. I saw you, when you found him. You were hurting. I wanted more of it."

"You nearly killed him," Carter broke out angrily. "I thought you liked him - I thought..." He stopped abruptly.

"I do like him. But I couldn't let him interfere between you and me." She spoke as if the logic of her viewpoint was so rational as to be inarguable.

Carter, half-dazed by the pain in his shoulder, tried to clear his mind. There was nothing he could do now for Hogan and Kinch, and if this lady was as crazy as she seemed, his own chances of survival weren't looking good. But the Krauts would respond to the explosion, they'd be sure to turn up soon. If he kept her talking till then...

...and they'd hand him over to the Gestapo as a saboteur. And he knew what that meant. He couldn't risk it; he knew too much. If they broke him - and they probably would, eventually - the whole operation, LeBeau, Newkirk and the rest of the men at Stalag 13, the Underground in Hammelburg, agents as far away as Düsseldorf, or even further; all of them would be endangered. He felt sick thinking of it, but he couldn't see any other way out; he had to make her shoot him.

She was still watching him. "You're not going to ask?"

Carter, lost in his own thoughts, didn't understand what she meant at first. Then it clicked. "I don't need to know, lady. You lost someone. There's a war on, that's what happens. Get over it." That was cruel, he knew, but right now he needed to be.

He thought for a second he'd succeeded. Magdalena's lips thinned, and the pistol steadied in her hand. Carter held his breath, waiting for it. But she was still in control. She wasn't ready yet.

"I suppose to you he's just one in the crowd," she said. "Not to me. You have no idea what you did to me."

"Think so?" Carter tried to move towards her, then stopped, biting his lip to suppress a cry of pain as the motion jarred his damaged shoulder joint.

He couldn't continue until he got his breath back, and his voice was low when he did. "When I got shot down, three of my buddies didn't make it. I was with one of them when he died. So don't you tell me I got no idea. You just better get on with it, before the guards get here."

"They won't. I was watching for you, every night," she said coolly. "As soon as I knew you were on the way, I drove here myself. Bringing a present, from General Langbein. A couple of bottles of wine for the major, and a case of beer for the other men. They know me now, they didn't suspect a thing." She glanced at the dead man. "But there's always one conscientious one, isn't there?"

Carter stared at her, stunned at how far she'd been prepared to go for this. Her meaning was clear; drugged, or poisoned, either way the German guards were out of action. Hogan and Kinch were gone; there was no way anyone else could know what was going on. No chance of a last-minute rescue this time.

It was just between him and Magdalena.

* * *

A low, anxious chattering sound, close to LeBeau's ear, brought him back from the state of half-consciousness into which the explosion had thrown him. He stirred, and raised his head.

The night bird, barely inches from his face, turned its head sideways to look him in the eye. Then it jumped backwards, awkwardly, with a clumsy flutter and a high-pitched whistle.

LeBeau pushed himself up on to his elbow. "Don't you ever stop?" he muttered wearily. "Can't you get someone else?"

But even as he spoke, he was struggling to his feet. There was nobody else. He had to keep going. Everything he'd been through to this point would be for nothing, if he gave in now.

The bird had led him towards the fence, but in a line which angled away from where they'd come through the wire. A long, low building, looking like a barracks, lay between him and the perimeter; the night bird shuffled around the shadowy side and disappeared into the dark.

LeBeau's unsteady progress slowed and stopped. For a few moments he peered into the shadows. No sign of movement, no sound. Nothing.

"Are you there?" he whispered. There was no response.

He couldn't understand what had just happened. All he knew was the night bird wasn't there any more. After all this time, it had left him. Did that mean...?

"Oh, Carter," he muttered, and stumbled forward.

His fears were premature. As he rounded the far end of the building, she was there in front of him, as pale and cold as the moonlight. Carter, as well, crouched against the fence, his whole awareness apparently focused on Magdalena, his grief and anger visible even at a distance.

She had a gun. LeBeau was unarmed; he guessed Carter was, too, otherwise he'd have tried to take her out by now. And if his awkward posture was anything to go by, Carter was hurt. But he was still alive.

For a moment LeBeau hesitated, knowing whatever he did now would mean Carter's life, and possibly his own. He had no idea how he was going to play it. Magdalena had the advantage there. She'd worked out her game plan in advance, and she'd played it well. But it wasn't over yet.

LeBeau straightened up, and stepped out of the shadow into the moonlight.


	22. Chapter 22

"Everyone okay?" said Hogan, pushing himself up on his elbows.

His voice sounded muffled in Newkirk's ears. They'd made it out in time, and had even managed to take cover behind one of the outbuildings; but they'd still been pretty close when the countdown finished. It was going to be a while before any of them could hear properly; even the fire which was now taking possession of the shattered building sounded distant.

Newkirk had made it to his feet, and stood leaning with one hand against the corrugated iron wall which had sheltered them from the worst of the blast. Kinch was still down, looking as if he'd been pretty hard hit. He looked up at Hogan, a look of bewilderment on his face.

Hogan got to his knees, unsteadily. "Any sign of Carter?" he asked.

Newkirk shook his head, and straightened up, looking around. "No sign of either of them," he murmured. He tried to unblock his ears, to no effect; brushed the dirt from his sleeves, and rubbed his fingers across his knee, where a sharp stinging sensation suggested he'd landed more awkwardly than he thought, when he dived for cover.

Hogan passed a hand across his forehead. "Maybe they headed back to the gap in the wire. Kinch, can you stand up?"

"Can't hear you, Colonel," replied Kinch, gazing at him with fixed concentration.

"I think we're all in the same boat there," said Hogan, as he helped Kinch to stand.

Newkirk took a couple of steps forward, wincing as another small pang went through his knee. "I don't like this, Colonel. That Magdalena's already done Jakob in, and..." He broke off, at a much sharper stab of discomfort. "Didn't think I fell that hard," he muttered.

Hogan's attention stayed on Kinch, who was looking distinctly wobbly on his feet. "We could have more problems. The Krauts should be here any second," he said tersely. "Newkirk, check round the other side. Be careful."

With a muffled groan, Newkirk limped to the corner of the building. "Nobody here, Colonel - bloody hell, what was that?" The pain had shifted; now it was his other leg which felt as if...

Newkirk suddenly stopped dead. A small detail of LeBeau's story had come back into his mind with that last twinge. _Carter felt it once... It bit him on the leg._

"You must be joking," he murmured under his breath.

Apparently it was no joke; yet another jab, slightly lower and slightly harder, confirmed it.

He glanced over his shoulder at Hogan, who was still occupied with Kinch. "Colonel, I think there might be something going on," he said in a low voice. "I'll just go and have a look round." Then, in an even softer tone, "Okay, Polly, which way?"

He took a couple of steps forward, and another small nip, just above the ankle, seemed to confirm he was on the right track. "I must be out of my mind," he muttered as he moved quietly away.

"Did you say something, Newkirk?" said Hogan a moment later. Receiving no reply, he turned. "Newkirk...?"

For a few seconds he gazed at the empty space which a minute or so earlier had contained one English corporal. "Well, that's just great," he growled. "What is this, national hide-and-seek week?"

"Sorry, Colonel," replied Kinch. "I still can't hear you."

* * *

Neither Magdalena nor Carter noticed at first that they had company. The mutual engagement between them was absolute; no pair of lovers could have been more completely absorbed in each other. It was almost embarrassing. LeBeau had the strangest feeling that he ought to apologise for intruding, and leave them to it. But this was one tête-à-tête which could only end badly.

He cleared his throat. Neither of them heard him, and he had to do so again, louder, before Magdalena turned her head slightly, and saw him.

"_Pardon_," he murmured, in spite of himself.

She didn't say a word. Her chin moved, as if she wanted to speak, but her mouth was firmly closed.

LeBeau took a couple of steps towards her. The gun moved slightly in his direction, then back towards Carter.

"I have to hand it to you, _chérie_," LeBeau went on. "You had me fooled for a while."

"Louis..." Carter was almost too distraught to speak. "Louis, she said..."

"It's okay, Carter. They're safe." LeBeau kept his eyes on Magdalena; his peripheral vision caught the movement as Carter half-slumped, with an involuntary gasp of either relief or pain, or possibly both.

Magdalena shook her head, and smiled. "They were in the basement room. I've got the key."

"Newkirk doesn't need a key. He got them out in plenty of time." Another step forward; and the gun shifted again.

If he was mistaken, and Newkirk hadn't got the door open before...

_Don't think about that. Of course they got out._

He recognised the gun in her hand as Carter's; it was one they'd all used, as familiar as an old shoe. However, the Luger wedged into her belt was a piece of equipment he'd never seen before.

"I see the glove wasn't the only thing you kept to remind you of Ernst," he observed.

"He left it at home, on the last day," replied Magdalena. "I thought it would be appropriate. His gun, his killer."

Carter blinked at her, as he struggled to keep up with the changing situation. He had moved back against the fence, with the fingers of his right hand laced through the wire, the other hand pressed against his shoulder, trying to keep it from moving. LeBeau was close enough now to see exactly how he was restrained. More of Ernst's property, probably.

Just beyond him lay the body of a German soldier.

"But you're not using his gun," said LeBeau. "What happened - run out of ammunition?" He gave a short laugh as she bit her lip, visibly disconcerted. "One bullet for your first attempt; a bit of target practice, because your first attempt was so pathetic; then Jakob..."

"I saved one for him." She glanced at Carter. "But then I had to use it on him." The gun moved just slightly towards the dead man. "So I had to improvise."

LeBeau glanced at the body. He didn't risk looking too closely; the sight of the pool of blood, glimmering faintly, took him too close to the memory of that night in Nina's room. He'd seen enough, anyway; he sent one look towards Carter, then turned his eyes back to Magdalena.

"He must have been something, that Ernst of yours," he went on. "How many lives does it take to make it up to you? Jakob...Colonel Hogan...Kinch...Carter...me as well, if you had to. All for the sake of your Ernst. Well, you know something, Magdalena? The world's better off without him."

She turned her head at that, her eyes narrowing. "You know nothing about him."

"I know enough." LeBeau took another step, moving slightly to the right, so she would have to turn to keep him in sight. If he could draw her attention away from Carter, towards himself...

"He was SS, wasn't he? She didn't tell us about that, Carter," he went on. "Working with the Gestapo. That must have made for some interesting conversation over dinner." Another couple of steps. He had her attention now.

"Sorry to be so late, _Liebchen_. Would you believe it, we had to torture that old woman for nine hours before she would tell us where her son was hiding. Some people just have no consideration."

"Stop it!" she said, in a low angry voice.

He couldn't risk taking his eyes off her, but he heard a sharp intake of breath from Carter, as a careless movement brought on a renewed shock of pain. Magdalena's eyes flickered towards him, but turned back as LeBeau started up again.

"Of course, some men don't bring their work home. It's just a job. Beating suspects, forcing confessions, faking evidence, the usual routine. I bet there were some days he couldn't be bothered telling you about. Maybe he didn't even have to. What was it you told me?"

He couldn't be sure whether Carter had moved again, or if it was just a trick of the moonlight. Magdalena didn't seem to have noticed.

"You knew his moods, his thoughts, even when he was away. How did that work, _chérie_? Could you turn it off when he was doing something you didn't want to know about? Or did you listen in, when he went with Feldkamp to Mondberg, to take care of a fifteen-year-old boy who saw something he shouldn't? Along with his whole family. And their dog, just to be thorough."

"Shut up!" Her voice was starting to shake. The gun wavered, between Carter and LeBeau.

"How about Heiligen? That must have been tough. Sure, just an interrogation, but she was young, she was pretty, you must have wondered whether he was enjoying it more than a married man is supposed to."

He'd pushed it too far; from the sudden change in her expression, he could tell he'd hit a nerve. Her hand came up, the pistol aimed at him; too uncontrolled for accuracy, but at this range she couldn't miss.

The report seemed louder than anything he'd ever heard in his life. Everything around him stopped; he felt as if he'd fallen into deep cold water, then as if his skin was burning. Magdalena's eyes were fixed on his, wide open with surprise.

Then she fell.

LeBeau's eyes went past her to Carter, still chained to the fence post. He was breathing hard, and appeared ready to collapse from the pain and exertion required to reach the German guard and get the man's pistol from his holster. The weapon was still in his left hand; he didn't seem to have the strength to let go of it.

"I'm sorry, Louis," he whispered. "I'm so sorry."

LeBeau couldn't find any words to answer him. He dropped on one knee beside Magdalena, and brushed her hair back from her face.

He didn't need to check. He knew she was dead.


	23. Chapter 23

"Never mind whether Polly wants a cracker," growled Newkirk. "What Polly's going to get is a kick up the arse."

The guidance he was receiving was a trifle erratic, and difficult to follow; and the bird, if it was indeed LeBeau's night bird that was responsible for the increasingly irate attacks on his lower extremities, didn't seem to count patience amongst its virtues.

It had taken a couple of minutes for Newkirk to work out which direction he was meant to go, and his own forbearance was wearing thin by the time the bird's insistent chivvying had brought him to the shaded side of a long, low building near the fence line. Behind him, the main building was burning nicely, but his eardrums were still ringing, and the noise of the flames sounded quite distant.

The pistol shot, however, sounded as if it had gone off right next to his ear.

He was running before he'd even realised what it was, and spun round the corner of the building so fast that he nearly overbalanced; just in time to see the girl crumple to the ground.

"Oh, Jesus," muttered Newkirk, sliding to a halt.

LeBeau went down on his knee next to her. Newkirk couldn't see his face, but he saw Louis's hand reach out to touch her face. Beyond them, Carter remained against the fence, his chest heaving with every breath, and his body extended awkwardly towards the dead German guard lying nearby.

Polly had apparently decided Newkirk required no more hints in order to work out what to do from here; and Polly was right. He judged quickly who was most in need of his help, and went straight to Carter.

"Right, Andrew, let's get you out of this," he said, speaking roughly to hide his anxiety.

He set to work on the cuff with his picklock, and Carter drew in his breath sharply at the slight movement of his arm and shoulder that this entailed. He didn't look at Newkirk; his eyes were on LeBeau. "I had to, Louis," he said, after a few seconds.

LeBeau didn't reply; it was as if he hadn't heard. Newkirk gave him a quick look.

"I could use some help here, you know," he remarked.

Still no response; but a moment later, Hogan appeared from behind the barracks building, took in the situation and came running, an unsteady but determined Kinch following in his wake.

"Everyone okay?" Hogan demanded shortly.

"You mean apart from Magdalena?" replied Newkirk, still working. A second later, the bracelet fell open. Carter's arm dropped, and he choked back a cry of pain, the German soldier's pistol finally slipping from his grasp.

"Steady, Carter," said Hogan, bending to put an arm around him in support. He glanced sideways at LeBeau, who still hadn't moved. "We need to get moving, fast. The guards should have been here by now."

"They're not coming," murmured Carter, his voice so ragged that Newkirk barely heard him. "She took care of it."

Hogan's eyes met Newkirk's. Neither of them wanted to ask; Carter was pretty obviously at his limit. Whatever had been going on here, it had taken a toll on him, and on LeBeau as well, from the look of it. "Better not take the chance," said Hogan with decision. "Newkirk, can you look after Carter? I'll see to LeBeau."

"Begging your pardon, Colonel, but maybe I should take care of LeBeau. There's a lot been going on that you don't know about." Newkirk sat back on his heels, with a rueful, almost embarrassed grin.

"Okay," said Hogan. "But don't waste any time over it."

Newkirk scrambled to his feet, and went to LeBeau. One look was enough to enlighten him; he'd never seen LeBeau looking like that. _Blimey, Colonel Hogan's not the only one who didn't know everything_, he thought.

Automatically, because that was what he always did, he confirmed that the girl was dead, and removed the gun from her hand. That was their property, not hers; even dead, she didn't get to keep it.

He put a hand on LeBeau's shoulder, awkwardly. "Louis, we have to go, mate."

LeBeau heard him, but only as if in a dream, or back in that timeless sea of darkness that had so nearly claimed him, a few days ago. He was aware only of Magdalena's stillness and silence, and the silence and stillness of the night bird, crouched at her head, gazing at him with its white marble eyes.

After a minute, Newkirk spoke again. "LeBeau, let her go. She's not worth it. She wasn't what you thought."

The night bird gave a tiny chirp, as if agreeing with him, and LeBeau turned his head slightly. Catching his eye, the bird bobbed its head as it had done so often in the past few days, ruffled out its feathers and gave one more soft burbling cry. And then it was gone.

_It's over_, he wanted to say, but there didn't seem any point.

"How's Carter?" he asked instead.

"He'll do," said Newkirk. "But the sooner we get him home, the better."

Carter was on his feet now, leaning heavily on the colonel's supporting arm, the look on his face so expressive of bewildered remorse that LeBeau's own grief suddenly seemed unimportant.

He'd saved Carter, as he'd set out to do; or Carter had saved him. Or maybe this was how it was meant to be, all along. He was too tired, and too grieved, to make sense of it yet.

Kinch was hovering on Carter's other side, anxious to be of assistance but still too far off balance. "I think Kinch might need a helping hand," murmured Newkirk, and went to help. LeBeau straightened up slowly, and took a few halting steps forward.

"It's okay, Carter," he said quietly. "There was no other way. _Mon Colonel..._" He stopped, not sure what it was he wanted to say.

Hogan nodded. "We'll talk later, LeBeau. I want to know the full story, but for now I'm just glad you got here when you did. Now let's get out of this, before there's any more trouble."

LeBeau went round to Carter's other side. He knew this was only a postponement. He had fared better than he could have imagined, when he had told Newkirk the full story; somehow he felt that convincing Hogan was going to be much harder. And yet, he knew he had no choice.

He hadn't known such heartache since Nina, and never in his life had he felt such a sense of betrayal. But the worst was still to come. He was going to have to face his commanding officer, a man he respected more than almost any other, and tell him that a non-existent bird had led him here. And if Hogan thought he was insane, as so many people had before, he wasn't sure he would be able to deal with it.


	24. Chapter 24

Morning in the cooler; Newkirk, sitting at one end of the cot with his back leaning against the wall, turned his head at the sound of swift striding footsteps.

"Visiting hours aren't till after lunch, Kommandant," he murmured indifferently, returning to his previous position and closing his eyes.

Klink pursed up his lips, and his eye socket seemed to shrink around the monocle wedged therein. "On your feet, Newkirk. Or is that how they teach you to greet senior officers in the RAF?"

Newkirk took another look. "Oh, sorry, Colonel Hogan," he said, with a smirk, as he stood slowly and stretched his shoulders. "Didn't see you there."

Hogan just grinned in reply.

Klink hesitated, then decided to let it pass. "Well, Hogan, where is it?"

Hogan shrugged. "How should I know? I don't keep track of 'em. I just report 'em."

He raised his eyebrows slightly in Newkirk's direction, then sent a sideways look at Sergeant Kühn, standing to one side at slightly flustered attention.

"I'm not at all convinced, Hogan," said Klink. "In all my time as Kommandant, I've never seen a rat in camp. Mice, yes. Cockroaches, yes. But never any rats."

"Well, I'm telling you, sir, some of the men saw one last night, coming in here. A really big one." Hogan's eyes turned towards Kühn again.

Klink seemed prepared to debate the matter, but Newkirk had already picked up his cue. "Begging pardon, sir, but you wouldn't be talking about little Adolf, would you? Pointy face, beady eyes, looks a bit barmy?"

"Oh, so you've seen him, too?" said Hogan. "You see, Kommandant? What more proof do you want?"

Klink scowled. "Uh-huh. Little Adolf. I see where this is going. And where, may I ask, is little Adolf now?"

"Maybe you should try ringing Berchtesgaden," suggested Hogan innocently.

Newkirk looked around, with a puzzled air. "He was here a minute ago, Kommandant. Trouble is, he's such a dodgy little devil. Can't trust him, you know."

"That's enough from you, Newkirk." Klink's voice dropped to a petulant grumble.

"He could be under the bed, sir," Newkirk added quickly, as the Kommandant turned to leave.

"You know, Kommandant, you're absolutely right." Hogan picked up the thread so smoothly, even Klink thought the suggestion had come from his own lips. "You should check that. After all, you have a reputation to maintain, and even one rat..."

"Silence, Hogan!" Klink hesitated, then went on brusquely. "Sergeant Kühn, go into that cell and check under the bed."

"_Jawohl, Herr Kommandant_," snapped Kühn, and reached for the keys. His hand met the fabric of his uniform coat, felt around, found nothing else.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" demanded Klink impatiently. "Go and search for that rodent at once."

Kühn had the look of a man already feeling the snow of an Eastern winter on the back of his neck. "_Bitte, Herr Kommandant_," he stammered, "I don't have...that is, I seem to have lost...I mean, misplaced..."

"This what you're looking for, Sergeant?"

All eyes turned to Newkirk in his cell, the keys on their big ring dangling from his finger.

"How did you get those keys?" demanded Klink furiously.

"Well, you mustn't be too hard on old Kühn there, Kommandant," replied Newkirk. "Only he must have forgot to take them out of the door last night when he brought my dinner. And of course, by the time I spotted them, well, it seemed a shame to wake him. So I thought I'd just hang on to them, keep them safe, you know."

There was a long silence, broken at last by a cry of outrage: "Sergeant Kühn!"

After that, it was a matter of course Newkirk would be released from solitary; it took only three minutes for Hogan to clinch it.

"Nice to get out in the fresh air at last, Colonel," remarked Newkirk, as he stepped out into the sunlight. That was for Klink's benefit, as the Kommandant stalked ahead towards his office, tremulous with indignation at the hapless Kühn.

"And nice to see someone get what was coming, too," added Hogan, watching the sergeant trudging away towards the guardhouse. He'd be walking patrols along the wire for the rest of the war, possibly longer.

Newkirk lowered his voice. "How's Carter doing?"

"Could have been worse," said Hogan, starting towards the barracks at a slow pace. "Wilson's had a look at his shoulder, he says it's not as serious as we thought. But he's out of action for the next few weeks." He paused, then added quietly, "He's pretty upset about Magdalena, but he's not the type to dwell on things that can't be helped. He knows he didn't have a choice."

"How about LeBeau?" Newkirk asked, after a moment.

"Not so good. He's taken it hard."

"I thought he might." Newkirk came to a standstill in the middle of the compound. He could see LeBeau, sitting on the bench outside the barracks, while Kinch loitered in the doorway keeping an eye on him.

LeBeau looked up, catching Newkirk's eyes fixed on him. Newkirk raised his eyebrows, with a tiny jerk of the head in Hogan's direction. He knew he could smooth out LeBeau's path by taking on the task of explaining what he knew of the whole implausible affair. And after a few seconds, LeBeau nodded in agreement.

"Colonel, before we go back to the barracks," said Newkirk, "I've got a bit of a story to tell you."

Half an hour went by before the conversation in the middle of the compound ended. LeBeau watched quietly, tense with nervous apprehension. He could tell Newkirk was putting everything he had into making a convincing tale of it, but he couldn't read Hogan's expression.

The colonel would never believe it; even Newkirk couldn't put that one over on him.

Carter came out of the barracks, and sat on the other end of the bench. His shoulder and upper arm were firmly strapped, and he moved awkwardly, trying to get comfortable. "You okay?" he asked timidly, after a couple of minutes.

LeBeau glanced at him, then at Kinch. "I guess so," he replied. "Don't look so worried, Carter. You did what you had to. I'm the one who should feel bad."

"Well, gee, LeBeau, it wasn't your fault," said Carter. "She had us all fooled. She seemed like such a nice girl."

There was no point in trying to explain, so LeBeau just leaned back against the barracks wall, trying not to look at Hogan, trying not to imagine what the colonel must be thinking.

They were looking his way. Newkirk had finished speaking; he sent LeBeau a grin, and a shrug. However it turned out, at least he'd tried. Hogan said a few words to him, then strolled over towards the barracks.

"Carter, you're supposed to be resting," he remarked.

Carter moved uncomfortably again. "It's awful quiet in there, Colonel," he replied diffidently. "I just couldn't sleep."

"And if I make it an order?"

"Well, if it's an order, then I guess...but I wish you wouldn't...sir." Carter's expression was gradually recalibrating to his customary look of vague apprehension. Hogan gave him a few seconds, then relaxed.

"Okay, Carter. But you have to take it easy. Newkirk..."

"Way ahead of you, Colonel. I'll sort him out, don't you worry. Carter - don't look at me like that, Andrew, I'm not going to bite. If you're not sleepy, then how about a game of cards...?"

He shepherded Carter back into the barracks. Hogan sent one quick look at Kinch, who read the hint, and followed the others, closing the door behind him, leaving Hogan and LeBeau alone in the weak autumn sunshine.

Hogan took Carter's seat. He didn't say anything.

"I suppose you think I'm crazy," said LeBeau after a while.

"Well, if you are, then Newkirk must be, too." Hogan meditated on that, as if he considered it a likely hypothesis anyway, then added, "In fact, he'd be even crazier. At least you saw something to justify it."

LeBeau flushed, and gazed across the compound, without seeing anything. "You don't believe it."

"I had some trouble with it, I'll be honest," replied Hogan. "But Newkirk offered to show me the beak marks on his ankles." He grinned at the startled look on LeBeau's face. "Apparently the bird decided you needed his help, and it wasn't too gentle about getting his attention. In fact - and I quote - _the flamin' little beggar drew blood_."

His imitation of Newkirk's East London accent was execrable, and LeBeau had to smile.

"I'm sorry, _mon Colonel_," he said. "Maybe if I'd told you...but I was scared. The last time..." He still couldn't talk about Nina, or about what had happened afterwards. That part of the story would have to wait. But Hogan seemed to get it.

"Chances are I wouldn't have bought it at the time, LeBeau. And anyway, I don't know if it would have done much good," he replied gravely. "Even if we'd kept Carter within bounds, she'd have tried something else - sold us out to the Gestapo, perhaps. Or she'd have tried to get to him through the rest of us."

"Jakob needn't have died."

"That wasn't your fault." Hogan paused, looking down at his little French corporal. "I don't quite get how it works, LeBeau. I don't get what it is, or how it decides who it's going to warn you about, or why it told you about Carter, but didn't tell you to watch your own back. But you almost got killed. We're not taking chances like that again."

"No, _mon Colonel_," said LeBeau quietly.

"So the next time you get a visit from any non-existent wildlife," Hogan went on, "you come straight to me. Is that clear?"

It took a few seconds for LeBeau to grasp that. He turned to look at Hogan, astonishment gradually giving way to a warm flood of relief. "You're going to take it seriously, if it happens again?"

"In this war, I'm willing to take all the help I can get," replied Hogan frankly. "No matter how unlikely the source."

"And you don't think I'm crazy?"

Too late, LeBeau spotted the gleam of laughter in Hogan's eyes, and realised the opening he'd just given him; and he began to laugh himself, even before the inevitable reply came, in the colonel's most disarming drawl.

"LeBeau," said Hogan, "I've always known you are."


End file.
